A Sandy Memorial Day

What a great Memorial Day. We had another fun beach day with friends. Thanks for letting us tag along, guys, and for letting us mooch off your food!

I was a little apprehensive about attempting this by myself but it actually went really well. Nate was a little fussy on the way there but then slept for about half of the trip down. I was hoping I would be able to get him to nap in the little tent I brought but it didn't happen. So, he was awake the entire 5-6 hours we were there! It worked out so much better than I planned, though, since he slept the entire way home. What a blessing.

He was mostly a happy little guy, so proud of himself in his very own swim gear:

We even made it through the whole day without him eating a handful of sand so I count that as a success.

The girls had a blast. Elizabeth was saying she didn't want to go because she gets "carsick". I've never seen her carsick a day in her life. She elaborated to say that her arms and legs hurt in the car, which I suppose I can understand. Still, I think it was all a ploy to get to stay home and play with her across-the-street friend Jaden, who she is obsessed with lately (that deserves its own post).

Anyway, after claiming she didn't want to go, she was the first one up! She was even dressed and ready when she came in to wake me up! I thought it was pretty cute.

Here she is frolicking in the waves:

This is her doing a little jig for me:

Natalie played in the water a little bit, too. In fact, it wouldn't be a beach trip without both of the girls getting knocked over by waves at least once.

Mostly, she played with her best friend Cedar:

Aren't they the cutest little pair? They really do look like twins, especially with his long hair. It's so funny because they ignore each other sometimes but when they decide to play, they have so much fun and never fight. They sat like this in the chair for quite awhile, laughing and sharing a bag of pretzels. She has decided she is going to marry Cedar. :)

Of course, we missed our Daddy.

I took Natalie to go to the bathroom at one point in one of those nasty public beach bathrooms. While she was going we had this conversation:

Natalie: This bathroom is yucky.
Ashley: Yes it is.
N: You know who taught me that?
A: (laughing) No..who?
N: Daddy. I miss Daddy.
A: Me too.
N: I wish he came to the beach with us.

So, there you go, Joe. That is proof that they do indeed miss you.

2 Bits of News

1. Joe made it to Ghana! We are having communication problems, though, so I don't know any more than that. We're just glad he made it safe and sound.

2. This handsome little guy has a tooth!

I even got the teeny-tiny thing in some pictures to prove it:

He even happened to be wearing his "first tooth" onesie

I love this little boy.

Children's Books

Two posts in one day! It's partially because I didn't really want to keep that nursing one up as the most recent for too long :). Also, it is a nice way to keep myself busy instead of fretting about the fact that Joe is somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean right now.

I may be weird, but I get really excited about children's books. I have so many favorites and I love it when I discover new favorites. Often, I am more excited about picking books out for the kids to read than about getting ones for me. I am definitely in "mommy mode" at this time in my life. (I hope that this also serves as a reasonable explanation for why I had a dream the other night about Sid the Science Kid speaking at General Conference, and that there are no underlying psychological issues at play here.) :)

Anyway. . . I recently discovered a new author that I love: William Steig. I'd never heard of him before until one day when Elizabeth picked up Shrek, written by him. I didn't even know the movies were based on that book. I actually didn't like that book all that much, although it had its moments. It was when we picked up Caleb & Kate that I first fell in love with his stories.

After that, I actually requested a bunch of his books from the library and we found a lot of other great ones:

These two are touching:

These are all just good fun:

The kids loved that last one and trying to figure out what all of the combinations of letters were saying.

Am I the only one who hadn't heard of this guy? He did win a lot of awards so you'd think I would have.

Does anyone else care this much about children's books? What are your favorites? I guess I should also ask--what are your kids' favorites?

The Joys of Nursing

Warning: Men way want to skip this post. :)

I found this a couple years ago and thought it was hilarious. I remembered the part about the "sack of squirming puppies" (PERFECT description of trying to feed Nate right now) and so I looked it up again. Still just as funny.

How to Prepare for Nursing

Forget that old advice about "gently rubbing your nipples with a towel." If you really want to feel ready to breastfeed, here's what to do.

Day 1: Gently rub your nipples with sandpaper.

Day 2: At bedtime, set your alarm clock to go off every two hours. Each time it rings, spend 20 minutes sitting in a rocking chair with your nipples clamped in a pair of chip clips.

Day 3: Draw branching lines all over your chest with a blue-green marker, then stand in front of your bathroom mirror and sing "I feel Pretty."

Day 4: Open your already-crowded freezer and make room for five dozen plastic milk bags.

Day 5: Fit the hose of a vacuum cleaner over one breast and set on "medium pile". Turn off vacuum when nipple is three inches long. Switch breasts.

Day 6: Obtain "DO NOT CROSS" tape from your local police station, then wrap firmly around your chest. When your spouse asks about it, say "Get used to it".

Day 7: Tape a water balloon to each breast and squeeze into a maternity bra. Repeatedly hook and unhook the nursing flaps with one hand while using the other to balance a sack of squirming puppies.

Day 8: Dine in the fanciest, snootiest restaurant you can afford, making sure to arrive with a big wet spot directly over each nipple.

Day 9: Record your mother proclaiming "Just give the baby some cereal like God intended, and she'll sleep right through the night." Play an endless loop at 1 A.M., 3 A.M. and 5 A.M.

Day 10: Slather your breasts with peanut butter, top with birdseed, and stand very still in your backyard.

Day 11: Go someplace public--a museum, a courthouse, the steps of your office building--and stuff a lifelike baby doll under your shirt. Use the doll's arm to suddenly hike the shirt up past your collar bone. Lower shirt. Feign nonchalant smile.

Day 12: Suckle a wolverine.

Congratulations! You are now ready to nurse a baby. Maybe.

One last outing

Well, he's off! We said goodbye to Daddy on Saturday. He's in NYC right now and will fly off to Accra, Ghana, on Thursday.

Here's the world traveler's passport picture:

He's not going to like me posting that but I just thought it wasn't fair to have such a good passport photo. My hair is back in a ponytail in mine and I kind of look like a man. Luckily I can get a new one soon.

We had some fun family time before he left including a trip to the park.

Happy to be outside

I haven't documented Nate's love of the swings yet so here it is:

Natalie loves the swings, too

Here's a whole bunch of Daddy and the boy, since I couldn't narrow them down...

We saw some cool wildlife while we were out, too, including this pretty good-sized frog:

Taking a break from checking out the frog to pose for Mom:

We saw a bunch of turtles and duck families, too. We also got to see the not-so-fun side of nature while we were out. We were just walking along the path looking at the ducks and things when Joe witnessed a crow fly down and grab a baby duckling. Luckily the kids didn't see it although they were pretty disturbed when they heard about it. I admit that I was pretty sick at heart when I heard, too, especially watching how agitated the Mama duck was after. I nearly cried but I knew I wouldn't hear the end of it from Joe so I bravely held back the tears :). We could even see the crow starting to eat it in the distance. Ahh... it hurts my heart just to think of it. I really hate to see things like that. I prefer to live oblivious to the fact that animals eat each other. Of course, all of this hasn't gone so far as to make me a vegetarian, except for a brief stint when I wouldn't eat pork after watching the movie Babe as a kid. What a hypocrite I am.

Anyway, we're missing Joe but doing well so far. I hope to fill our days up with some fun adventures. If only the weather would let us! And, Elizabeth has developed a cold so I guess the adventures will have to wait.

Scooting Races

I discovered this going on one day....

(I love the way Natalie is sticking her bum up to scoot forward)

Now it's Lizzie's turn...

Nathaniel was undefeated. :)

Celebrating 90 Years

The reason that we were traveling on Mother's Day is that we drove to Idaho for Joe's Grandpa's 90th birthday party. It was a quick trip--drove there Friday, came back Sunday--but it was so fun to see everyone. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so we got zero pictures. I'm still hoping those of you who took some will send them to me (that's friendly reminder #1). :)

I did get some from some from my cousins-in-law who were at (I'm sorry--planned) the party...

I thought this one was really sweet.
I think this was taken while we were all singing Happy Birthday to Grandpa Hall:

Natalie is with her cousins James, Joelle and Sam and a second cousin in the back (I don't know his name).

It was a pretty neat moment. I can't imagine living 90 years and seeing so many people come as the result of your own little family. How amazing would that be?

Here are some taken by another talented cousin. Her photography blog is here. I love these pictures! Thanks so much, Jessica.

Joe and his cousin Jake (and babies close to the same age)

We also struck picture gold in some old photos that Marsha let us have. I haven't seen very many old pictures of Joe so I love it when I come across some.

What a cute baby

Now compare those to this one:

Definite similarities, right? Especially the mouth.

Future football star, playing in his grandparents' backyard with brothers and a cousin:

A bunch of the grandkids together with Joe in front:

You can spot he and his 4 brothers because they're the ones in suit coats. I actually really love that they all had to wear coats. I think it's so cute. Especially on cute little Richard. :)

Anyway, it was a fun weekend. Thanks everyone!

They Make Me Happy

I had a great Mother's Day. Unfortunately we had to drive for 10 hours (not all of which was roses and sunshine) but still...how could I not have a great day with these 3?

Wait. I am their mom? I have 3 kids? How did that happen?

However it happened, I feel incredibly blessed.

As a parting gift to any who may be fortunate enough to be reading this, here is one of the cutest pictures known to mankind:

This is Nathaniel's signature "shy look".

I finally got some pictures of him doing it tonight

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth made some paper cut-outs of our family. She accidentally cut the head off of the little Nathaniel picture and couldn't quite tape it back on right. She was sad at first until she stopped and said, "Wait--this does look like Nathaniel!"

She captured it pretty well, I think.