Olivia Scout and Co.

Hopefully you like long, rambling posts wherein I complain, mostly.

2012-01-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

- I have a love/hate relationship with school. I truly enjoy learning, especially when it's something I find interesting (physiology! microbiology! anatomy! english, kind of!), but even when it's not (math.), I still value the learning experience. It's so great! It makes me feel like I'm making myself a better person. When it's a really challenging class, like any in my last 3 semesters, the rush of conquering is heady. It gives me the sense that, if I really work hard and do my very best, I can do anything.

But.

I am so sick (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) of forfeiting the whole of my evenings to school's greedy hands. I feel like my entire life is spent keeping Olivia alive and happy, then once she's in bed, I'm poring over textbooks and notes, writing papers, making flashcards, and drilling concepts into my head. To put myself to sleep at night, I mentally recite all the things I'm learning. I'm not sure if it's the sleep deprivation from late nights spent studying or just the nature of the material, but this has been the most effective sleep-finding tactic I've ever employed.

- It's not just my evenings, really. Each of Olivia's baths, during her shows, and while she plays with Play-Doh, I will likely be found clutching some sort of school paraphernalia (that word is hard to spell!). As a result, Olivia is constantly asking about what I'm reading. We've had lots of interesting discussions about cells, bacteria, various organs, skeletal structure, and basically any picture she can see on the page I'm currently studying. Today she put her hands on her stomach and said, "My stomach doesn't have bones like my chest does! What's inside there?" So we talked about her stomach and intestines (the word 'intestines' makes everything sound gross). She saw my Micro textbook with its cover picture of green bacteria and asked, "Ohhh, are those green cells?" And don't make fun of me, but it's kind of fun to have someone to talk to about all the stuff I'm learning. Even if she's only four.

- I'm excited for the Hunger Games movie to come out. I wonder if there'll be a midnight showing? Want to come with me if there is?

- I have plenty of clothing options to choose from in my closet, but somehow all I want to wear lately falls under the categories of: Big, Baggy, and preferably Flannel. I probably ought to earnestly start running again.

- I'm experiencing a drought of healthy, tasty recipes lately. I need some new meals to make our lives more exciting! But also ones that keep me from committing to elastic waistbands for the rest of my life (I am this close, as it is, if only for their stretchy comfortability!). Have you made something spectacular lately? You ought to tell me about it! I will report back to you and everything. You could email me, if you wanted, at jenivive86 at hotmail dot com. I created that email address when I was 16, by the way. One day I'll make a grown up one, probably.

- Oh, fine. I will stop talking your ears off (writing your eyes off?) and show you some pictures.

Catching snow!

Catching snow again but in a different way!

Here I am holding a textbook to show you that I was studying while Olivia was creating what she told me were tickets (?) out of Play-Doh.

Olivia told me she wanted to write a journal about her experience in the orange groves at her Nana's house. She came up with the words on her own (and drew accompanying pictures, but they didn't fit in this collage), then I told her how to spell them. Four year old handwriting is my favorite.

Keeper of the Sprinkles.

2012-01-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Olivia started crying in bed a few nights ago. Just hysterically screaming, so I finally went back to find out what the commotion was about. I immediately wished I hadn't.

"I was looking at this book, (holding up If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) and I saw these cookies. And then I realized, I dooon't have annny coooookiessssssss!!"

And then she dissolved into a fit of tears.

What am I to say in such an instance? What could possibly comfort this child, short of bringing her a cookie, which I was absolutely not going to do?

So I improvised.

"Hey! I have an idea. Maybe tomorrow we can go to the store and get stuff to make sugar cookies. Then we can decorate them! Won't that be fun?"

Sniffles. A stifled sob. "Um. Y-y-yes. But. But. I stilllll want a cooookieeee!!!"

And then I got desperate. I will just tell you, somehow she wound up clutching two containers of sprinkles and being deemed the Keeper of the Sprinkles (I wish I were kidding right now). She had to promise to keep those sprinkles safe and IF she could do that, we would be making cookies in the morning.

Seriously, I gave a child two easily-opened containers of sprinkles overnight on sheer trust that she wouldn't open them, consume them, and make a gigantic rainbow mess all over her bed.

But it worked (and the longer I parent, the more I realize the value of simply doing what works).

She slept. She kept her sprinkles safe and brought them proudly to me the next morning.

So we made sugar cookies.

She told me they tasted like heaven and joy.

We FINALLY got some snow last night, so Olivia spent a couple hours rolling around in it. What is this winter doing?? No snow until the end of January? I'm worried this means we'll have winter until July.

Emily and the crazies.

Thomas.

O and my dad.

The end.

A week in review.

2012-01-15T23:48:00.000-07:00

Well. We've had quite the week.

Sunday: Olivia's birthday. Hooray, she's four!

We had a big family party for which I can take no credit since it was already planned before anyone knew it was Olivia's birthday. But, HEY! I brought an Oreo cheesecake (at my four year old's request), we stuck some candles in it, and suddenly she thought she was at a birthday party all for herself. I have since learned that I cooked the cheesecake 25 degrees hotter than I should have. So. You know. The edges weren't really supposed to be quite so brown. She wasn't the prettiest girl at the party, but at least she tasted delicious.

Olivia opened some presents, including this lovely flower crown creation from Alisha. She's pretty obsessed with it. (Olivia, not Alisha.)

I will tell you, sometimes I feel like I must be the lamest mom on the planet. I am not the super party planning type. Nor am I the creative ideas and making awesome food type. These are just not my talents! Olivia did lots of fun things for her birthday, like seeing Puss in Boots with Rusty, going out to eat with us to celebrate, plus she opened a bunch of fun presents, and blew out candles, and ate cake. I thought it was plenty, and she was happy. Which I think is the crux of it all. She was happy.

And some year, when she is old enough to want one, I will throw her a party, for crying out loud.

And I will steal all the clever ideas from Pinterest for it!

Monday: Olivia had her 4 year well child check up.

When I called to make her appointment, my first question was, "How much longer do I keep scheduling these things?" Because she's been going to them faithfully since she was brand new. "Her last yearly exam will be when she's five," was my answer. But it actually makes me happy because I love getting her stats. It's just fun in a weird, nosy mother sort of way.

Height: 37 inches- 12th %

Weight: 31 lbs- 24th %

24th percentile is a big deal for the little girl who has spent her entire life in the single digits! But I wasn't that surprised since she grew almost three inches and gained five pounds over the year. She has really grown in the last few months.

Her doctor told me she was old enough to receive the booster immunizations that she'd have to have before entering kindergarten and asked if I was interested in giving them to her now or waiting until her 5 year appointment. I decided to get them over with, so she had three shots before we left. She was so brave! She definitely cried, but she let them do it and I am so glad to have them done. Even though we have to go back in a month to get one more booster. :/

She did get some frozen yogurt out of the deal.

Here she is in all her four year old glory.

She thinks being four makes her terribly grown up. She was trying (unsuccessfully) to blow bubbles in her gum the other day and asked me to teach her. I told her it was really tricky and that she'd probably have to learn when she's older. She replied, "Come on, Mom. I'm a four year old! I can handle it!" Not to mention the time she told me, "MOM! I'm not a baby! I'm four now; that means I'm a grown up!" Ariel syndrome, anyone?

Tuesday: My first day of the new semester! Microbiology with a lab and Scientific and Technological English! Plus a random online class for extra credits! I made spaghetti which is Olivia's favorite meal of all time (she eats it in t-shirts so as not to ruin her clothes).

Which is relevant because verrry early the next morning, I heard a shout from her bedroom that sounded like, "I BLEW UP!" which turned out to be, "I THREW UP!" but I think both are particularly apt in this scenario. And did I meet that spaghetti for a second time.

Wednesday: was spent laying low and watching poor Olivia throw up five times in a three hour period.

We played Legos and watched an entire season of Backyardigans (thanks, Netflix!) in two days.

She is a pretty happy patient, thankfully.

We stayed home all of Thursday (excepting the part where I went to school), even though Olivia seemed to be totally back to normal. I started to feel a little under that evening.

Friday: Oh, Friday. It was finally my turn to vomit uncontrollably, so that was fun. Isaac had to work the entire day- literally, from early morning until midnight, so I lied on the floor of whatever room Olivia chose to occupy and whimpered, mostly. I also slept a lot while Olivia watched shows and found different things to play with by herself (I refuse to feel guilty). I would open my eyes at random intervals and discover her in all sorts of places, talking to herself and keeping herself thoroughly engaged. It was quite the blessing.

Here's a picture she snapped of me while I slept:

She took, like, 47 different shots and maybe 25 short, unintentional videos of herself during this time, which were possibly my favorite thing that I've stumbled across in my entire life.

From my floor vantage point. Olivia also spent the entire day en déshabillé because I was too weak to bathe or clothe her.

Saturday: I felt just a little weak Saturday morning- it was definitely one of those 24 hour bugs. I was even able to keep my dinner date with Cara that evening.

And here's our fantastic accidental candid of the night.

And I think my face sums up my week quite nicely.

Equal parts hilarious and terrifying.

2012-01-10T00:42:00.000-07:00

Perhaps my favorite part of raising a child lies in the built-in front row seat to human development. It's really super cool.

I mean, a minute squish of uncoordinated, oblivious newborn humanity (albeit a very darling, heaven-sent minute squish of uncoordinated, oblivious humanity) can typically become a walking, talking, bossing, joking, brilliant human being in a ridiculously brief matter of months.

And really, all of this is to say: I was going through my phone the other day.

I downloaded a coloring book app which MAYBE I chose because I wanted something to keep Olivia occupied on mornings when she wakes up too early for my liking. She comes and hangs out in bed with us for a little while, asks for my phone to do her coloring, and I close my eyes for a few stolen moments of peaceful oblivion. Some days she really loves it and I get an extra half hour, forty five minutes if I'm really lucky, and that works for us.

I got curious and began to scroll through some of her creations recently.

It was fun to see a lot of appropriate colors populating the appropriate places (re: opening paragraphs).

But even more fun to see the inappropriate colors. What could be better than a regal pink quail?

A black bone.

Purple fire and pink stars.

Green smoke.

What should have been yellow sand is made into an island of green grass.

More pink stars.

A lily pad with a flower which bears an unfortunate resemblance to chest hair.

And don't we all wish camels were pink?

His eyes are my favorite.

And there I was, scrolling through pictures, when I came across this guy:

Oh, hello, Black Unicorn of Doom.

And then I got a look at the next picture:

There are no words.

A journey.

2012-01-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

4 years ago, at this very moment, I was awake in bed, trying to pretend like I wasn't really going into labor.

Nature was not to be stifled, however. Some 20 hours later, I was holding a gorgeous new baby girl in my arms.

She was quiet and curious those first hours (as I hear newborns generally are). She was content peering about and examining her bright new circumstance.

Someone decided we seemed like we could be trusted with a shiny new human and sent her home with us. (That date is terribly incorrect- I think this was closer to 01/11/08.)

Months began to pass and suddenly she was a chubby-cheeked, gap-toothed little lady with a penchant for Ritz crackers.

And I don't know how it happened, but somehow she continued to grow- all the way until she was one year old.

She learned to walk and talk. She learned to play, to reason, to tease.

Another year passed. And then she was two.

She grew a whole lot that year.

She became potty trained, she learned to recognize some letters.

And then she was three.

She had her first surgery.

She learned to write her name.

She had swimming lessons.

And mostly, she spent the year three being really, really cute.

But now, she is turning four.

And suddenly she is all long limbs and intelligent questions.

I keep thinking she can't get any better, but then she does.

Happy Birthday, Olivia Scout!

Velcro mermaid fins.

2012-01-05T23:36:00.001-07:00

The events following Christmas included:

Non-stop playing outside in gorgeous weather. I would bring my book out and bask in the sun like a lizard on a rock while Olivia pranced about barefoot, drew with sidewalk chalk, played in the playhouse, and drove the little cars. And climbed on top of them, too. (?)

Play-doh! And why do they spell it that way, anyway?

Olivia and her cousins had the opportunity to feed and ride a horse named Poppy through the orange groves, thanks to some family friends.

I thought she’d be really nervous, but she didn’t need any prodding before jumping on Poppy’s back.

We made gingerbread houses at Blake’s parents’ house. That was a sentence with serious apostrophe usage.

Sushi! (As usual.)

S’mores in the backyard fire pit. Although ‘pit’ is a terrible word for the pretty set up they’ve got back there.

A date with Nana to see Chipwrecked and to get Build-A-Bears. Isaac and I sent Olivia off with Sherri and Corisa for the day, and if you’re wondering what heaven is like, I will just tell you, it’s a lunch date in the middle of the day with nary a responsibility in sight.

Playing at the park.

Olivia played on the equipment for maybe 10 minutes before she started frantically collecting acorns (or some kind of nut?) like a rabid squirrel. She couldn’t even be bothered to look up for a picture; notice her eyes scanning the ground for more treasures. She filled that entire bag, you guys.

We went to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Sherri’s birthday. And Olivia randomly invented a game where she crumbled pieces of her coloring paper and sent them catapulting everywhere off her fork? I asked her to stop a few times, but she couldn’t help herself (and she’s usually a pretty good listener!). She kept sending papers flying every time I turned my head. Until she accidentally shot her entire fork into Corisa’s water glass. Then I had to get serious business on her. Even though it was a pretty spectacular shot.

Setting up another shot. Rylee’s face just tells you that they’re up to mischief.

I really tried to get a cute picture of the two of them, that’s all I can say.

The Tierneys had to fly back to London on New Year’s Eve. Here they are saying goodbye. I think we all had watery eyes after their little embrace. Can you feel the love in this photo? Because I can.

Olivia’s favorite activity was swimming in the jacuzzi. Or “chacuzzi”, if you’re Olivia.

Velcro mermaid fins!

Right???

We finally left on Tuesday. We stayed in Vegas again, not necessarily because we need to, just because we like to.

Olivia was pretty impressed with the ceiling in the Bellagio.

I was, too.

Practicing her ‘princess manners’ at Maggianos. She took behaving like a princess really seriously throughout the entire dinner; don’t tell that I earned 150 gold star mom points for thinking of that one.

Enjoying the amenities in our room. Also don’t tell that she is watching SpongeBob. (I think I lost my gold star mom points for that one?)

Pretty view.

Some of Olivia’s photography on the drive home.

And now we’re home. All of us together in the same house, I feel like it’s significant to point out.

Here’s to a New Year and new beginnings, yes?

We all need them, I think.

Christmas.

2011-12-28T00:35:00.001-07:00

I feel like the above picture is a good way to open any post. Just after posing for this picture, Rylee dismissed me by scolding that I was interrupting their secret meeting. I can only imagine!

We attended the Annual Ellsworth Christmas Eve Tamale and White Elephant Party. It was fabulous, as usual. My mother-in-law made the most amazing spicy green chili ever. I am not certain, but I think the secret ingredient is manna from heaven.

I did take pictures during the nativity and gift exchange, but my camera is being a real drama queen lately and not a single one is worth posting. (p.s., if you like your digital camera, please tell me what kind you have! I have so many issues with mine!)

When the party was over, Santa rang the doorbell and dropped off our Christmas pajamas. Olivia was practically shaking with excitement. But her pjs were accidentally left out of the bag- and, oh my gosh, you should have seen her face- HER FACE! It was the saddest thing ever! We realized they must still be in my in-laws’ bedroom (which conveniently has a fireplace), so a hurried story was told about how Santa had left hers especially for her in Nana’s bedroom. What a relief! He didn’t forget her! We ran in and found her wrapped package just next to the fireplace (thanks to a running-ahead-of-us Nana).

Unwrapping her Christmas Tinkerbell pajamas.

She changed quickly, then ran outside, claiming to hear bells and searching the sky frantically for Santa’s sleigh. She was pretty sure she found it.

Merry Christmas Eve! Love, Us.

Each of the girls made a note for Santa next to the cookies, milk, and carrots (for the reindeer, of course).

Olivia’s featured a Santa with a hat and a beard, seventy cookies, and little line-shaped carrots.

I was nervous about asking the girls to wait clear until after church to open presents, but they all acted like it was a complete non-issue. Not a single complaint, which is pretty impressive for a 6 year old and two 3 year olds! Church was pared down from its usual three hours to only one, which was nice. The highlight for me was when they asked for all the Primary kids to come up for their musical numbers; Olivia (who was sitting with her Aunt Danielle on the opposite end of the bench from me) hopped up and ran to the front to sing in a ward to which we don’t belong, while they sang songs that she didn’t know, in a program that she isn’t old enough for (she missed the Primary deadline by 8 days and had to spend an extra year in Nursery). It was awesome. And she didn’t even attempt to move her mouth like she knew the songs, she just maneuvered her way to the front of the pack and stared at everyone in the audience during the musical numbers.

Walking in with Nana.

And finally opening her presents!

She loved reading her name on each of the tags. “O-L-I-V-I-A, hey! It’s mine!”

Pink binoculars from Nana (which were part of a whole super cool adventure kit that Sherri built for each of the girls).

A sassy adventure girl hat.

A gigantic spider from Aunt Corisa.

The only thing she would continuously articulate when asked what she wanted for Christmas was, “I want Legos Duplo!” I had no idea what they were, apparently she’d seen them on a commercial? Isaac and I laughed to ourselves as we perused the boy aisles, searching out the perfect Lego set for our little daughter. And can anyone tell me why Legos are so expensive? Are they fortified with diamonds or something?

She loves them just as much as she thought she would.

In some other items from her adventure kit. Plus Cinderella (thanks, Danielle!).

Then we ended the day with a Christmas bath.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Eve.

2011-12-24T00:24:00.001-07:00

I’ve had a hard time Christmas shopping for Olivia this year, and it isn’t totally because I’m poor, either. (DECEMBER IS SO EXPENSIVE.)

It’s because, as I mentally look around at all her things, I realize, she doesn’t really NEED anything.

Truly, it all feels a little excessive for the nearly 4 year old who couldn’t even express what she wanted for Christmas without it being planted in her head sometime in November. And even now, she is kind of confused about the whole what-do-you-want-for-Christmas?? thing.

Christmases with my family were pretty light on the individual gifts because, hello!, there were six kids running around! As teenagers, I can tell you my family’s unspoken Christmas motto of ‘Less Is More’ wasn’t exactly popular. (And this isn’t to say that my parents didn’t supply fantastically wonderful presents or that they didn’t try to make sure everyone got things that they wanted- it’s just that our per-kid budget seemed small compared to what some of my friends were getting.)

But these days? I am so thankful for their purposeful frugality. It made the Christmas focus shift from Things to People. And can we all agree that the memories are way better than the forgotten presents?

And let’s talk about how I sound like the lamest parent of all time who no kids would want to have for the Holiday Season.

But seriously. Is anyone with me, here?

(She is still going to get plenty of fun things, in case you were worried!)

We had the opportunity to go over to Isaac’s Aunt Cindy’s house to decorate sugar cookies and a gingerbread train. Olivia was pretty excited about it, as evidenced.

September (Isaac’s cousin) was so helpful. I pretty much milled around and took pictures whilst licking frosting off my fingers, while the older girls kept the younger girls busy. This whole trip has been an exercise in easy-peasy parenting. When there isn’t a cousin keeping Olivia entertained, there’s Corisa, or Nana, or Roxie the dog, or exciting toys, or warm weather outside, or new movies. Today Corisa, Sugar, and Cindy took Olivia shopping with them for a couple hours and brought her back sound asleep. I think I actively parented for maybe 2 hours today. It isn’t terrible, is all I’m saying.

Not a boy in sight.

The end result was, like, you know. It looked like that. So.

At least I’m not tempted to eat them?

I took this dark, fuzzy picture today because these two standing there reminded me so much of a picture I took two years ago:

Olivia has done some serious growing. They are almost the same height now. Oh, they are cute.

Don’t be jealous that it was 70 degrees today! Yesss.

Christmas time is here.

2011-12-21T23:12:00.001-07:00

I will tell you something: if it’s not my computer’s broken screen causing problems (and now it isn’t, thank you, Isaac), it’s the power cord deciding to spontaneously quit charging. The old girl is determinedly committing suicide and I can’t seem to keep up with her numerous ailments.

ANYWAY. We are in California!

Here are some pictures!

Don’t judge me because this is my favorite view from the whole 9 hours to California.

We stayed in Vegas and got lucky enough to spend the night in a fancy New York-New York suite.

And we ate some decidedly unfancy cheap pizza.

And this is the picture where I come to the realization that she is way too big for me to be holding her that way. Or to be holding her at all.

It was all really fun until I started to feel like I’d been hit by each of those semi-trucks that we’d passed earlier in the day. Aching head, throat, chills, sore limbs. It was the grossest.

But at least I had the opportunity to sleep on the softest bed ever to grace to surface of our green and blue earth, and for that I thank you, New York-New York people.

There were some spectacular winds the rest of the drive. The dusty fields lining the roads were generous with their loose dirt, gusting gigantic gritty sheets, rocking our car to and fro, and soundly impressing/terrifying Olivia.

We did make it alive. And we were awfully happy to see this pretty face when we arrived. (Her dad and sister hadn’t arrived from London yet.) They named themselves ‘Pinkerbell’ and ‘Purplebell’.

Please enjoy their amazing dance moves:

And then Rylee arrived and the non-stop cousin parties began in earnest. (This picture was taken in the early morning, which means I hadn’t yet become motivated enough to get Olivia dressed.)

Zesting oranges with Nana.

Watching Elf. Which is maybe on the tv as I type. But twice in three days isn’t really excessive because it’s the greatest movie of all time. And anyway, don’t you think Zooey Deschanel is barely recognizable in it? The blonde hair really makes her look different. And are you the type of person who types ‘blond’ or ‘blonde’? I choose the ‘e’ version because it looks totally naked without it.

Tonight’s spaghetti (in dress ups) was a great big, gigantic, amazing success.

But nothing was better than the simultaneous bath-taking.

4 days ‘til Christmas!

The First Nole.

2011-12-13T23:44:00.002-07:00

Things I love, and cherish, and think are spectacular at this very point in time:
-I'm finally finished with finals! Hooray! I should probably weigh myself because I'm pretty sure I just lost about 100 lbs of stress.
- Olivia is obsessed with grapefruit right now, only she can't remember what it's called, so she says, "Can I have that fruit? The one that is, like, orange on the outside and reddish pink on the inside?"
- I (finally) got my hair done today. I feel like a brand new woman. Can I call myself a woman? Do I qualify? Maybe yes because I've birthed and potty trained another human? Do I need a Britney Spears song right now to express my feelings on this matter properly? (I'm not a girl... not yet a woman!)(Please know that the previous parenthetical statement is comprised of lyrics from a Britney Spears song, not a serious expression of my feelings on the matter at hand.) Anyway, you're right. I'm totally a woman these days.
- Vacation in two days!!
- Yes!! Vacation!! No homework! And eating way too much! My favorite things!
- Oh! And my reading hiatus can end, too! I didn't have time to read during the semester, but seeing as I'm free for almost a month: books! My other favorite!

Things to desperately despise and to be thrown promptly into the fiery pits of Mordor:
- MY COMPUTER! The screen randomly went black the other day, never to shine its light upon my typing fingers again. So here I sit, typing on a stubborn, sticky keyboard in my parents' office. I am wishing for a Christmas miracle for my poor little lappy. Or else I am wishing for a convenient Middle Earth volcano in which to toss it.

Um. I can't think of anything else. But I think that's a good sign?

Sassafras.

Sunday morning heat vent sitting. I love when she does things that I did as a kid.

I recently changed her car seat into a booster and by her continued response to it, you'd think it was made of candy and glittering star dust. She feels terribly grown up about wearing a 'big girl' seat belt.

Setting up Christmas.

She was pretty much obsessed with the tinsel; she even made her own tinsel tree which had a star ornament embedded in its depths. And I love her other decorations, too. Especially 'NOLE'.

Photo dump.

2011-12-04T23:35:00.001-07:00

Sharing (more like stealing) Grandma’s lipstick.

We made this. I felt like a crafty mom, a little.

(I recognize this is not really that impressive, but you must consider the previous position of my craftiness bar. It was low enough for cockroaches to play limbo.)

Then the Indian Princess (as she was only to be called at this point) and I went to Target. And then Roberts, and then the bank, and all over town, and she never took her headband off even once.

She chose her shoes and each of her accessories and then was like, “Mom, take a picture of me being cold!”

Just climbing at the park in her contraband necklace. Emily has this fantastic drawer full of plastic beaded necklaces from various random occasions (I am starting to suspect Mardi Gras vacays? Without me?) and Olivia avails herself to them freely.

Carrying ‘tree seeds’ that she collected and begged to plant. Planting ended up being an artistic dance routine where she twirled and tossed seeds at random intervals and it was all pretty fantastic.

Of course, my sisters and I had to support Michelle by seeing Breaking Dawn with her since she missed out last time. What are sisters for, am I right?

Digging in the dirt. It always makes me want to die a little, but I am trying to be a nice, not-psychopath mom.

Olivia is obsessed with Thomas. Or, as she calls him, her little Chubber-box. (?)

He likes her, too.

And grandpa.

My friend Mari sent out the most spectacular Christmas card this year which included this mask.

Olivia preferred to use it as a magnifying glass.

I love this so much.

p.s. My finals will be over in 9 days! I promise better posts are coming!

It’s probably a good thing that Olivia broke the scale.

2011-11-27T23:56:00.001-07:00

Scenes from Thanksgiving:

Olivia with my two grandmas. My favorite is how my Grandma Williams and Olivia have interlocked fingers. Love.

Me with ma bebe.

Some of us.

I love Thanksgiving because of family, and turkey, and pumpkin pie, and being able to eat like this with nobody judging me:

It’s so great.

Emily and Grandma Ruchti.

Thomas recognizing a plaid-shirted kindred spirit.

Olivia and Rusty got their very own table next to dvd boxes of every season of 24 that ever aired. (We follow a strict creed of WWJBD in this family. [which is to say: What Would Jack Bauer Do? and honestly, talking in a husky voice and utilizing ruthless interrogation tactics has never served me wrong.])

My sisters. And my food baby.

And now, here are some pictures of people holding Thomas:

Is it Christmas yet?

Wintry Autumn.

2011-11-21T00:48:00.001-07:00

- Today Olivia, dressed in her massive tutu with pom-poms in hand, told me, “I’m dressed up like a ballerina cheerleader. But really, I’m a spy!” and proceeded to follow me around squinting one eye in her most spy-like expression. I was directed to gasp in shock when she stripped off the tutu and threw the pom-poms to the ground and exclaim, “WHAT?! She’s not really a ballerina cheerleader! SHE’S A SPY!”

- My mom was whipping up some cream while Olivia was trying to get her attention. She asked over and over, “What will that taste like?” but my mom couldn’t hear her over the mixer. She said, “Oh, I have an idea!”, then jumped off her stool, opened a drawer, and extracted a funnel. She put the skinny part to her lips, and in a magnified voice, called, “GRANDMA! WHAT WILL THAT TASTE LIKE?” Which effectively procured the attention she was seeking. And anyway, I thought it was pretty tricky of her to use the funnel as a megaphone.

- I’m sure we all have them; those days when we lose our patience extra quickly? Maybe react to little things more than is strictly necessary? (For me, it’s especially around Olivia’s bedtime.) And then, when all is finally quiet, we have to face ourselves. And feel that little twinge of embarrassment. Oh, but isn’t that the very worst?

- How is it possible that Thanksgiving is already this week?

- This week’s physiology lab dealt with the ever lovely subject of Urology. Which meant that every student had the enviable opportunity to pee in a plastic cup, not once, but FOUR separate times (over three hours) to test things like pH, check for renal diseases (I was seriously afraid that I’d find out I had some life-threatening illness), measure the volume by pouring it in a beaker, and so much more. It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable at all. I was using a heavy amount of sarcasm in the previous sentence. I hear that next week we get to test 10 mls of our own spit! So much fun!

- I was complaining about my flat iron, mostly to myself, when Olivia told me, “Welp. You’ll just have to deal with it.” And I made a sacred vow to never say that to her again. Because it’s really annoying to hear when you have a legitimate complaint, ok? (No, but seriously, my flat iiirooonnn!)

- The other day, I was telling Olivia a bedtime story about a persistent shark pursuing a mermaid. The mermaid got so fed up with the shark that she poked him in the eyes (my bedtime stories are pretty riveting!). As I glanced at Olivia just after the eye-poking, she told me with streaming eyes, “I don’t like this story!” Except her eyes weren’t crying because she was sad. It was because she has the most sensitive eyeballs on the planet, and mere stories of eye-poking make her own water uncontrollably. Even today, I splashed a little toothpaste in my eye while I was brushing her teeth; it burned a little, so I “ouch!”ed and closed it. Next thing you know, Olivia’s own eyes are welling over, just from thinking about the toothpaste in mine.

- Olivia discovered fallen walnuts all over our yard as my mom and I were raking leaves. She gathered them all, opened a few, and declared her bounty a snack for any traveling peacocks who might be hungry:

She’s pretty thoughtful like that.

Here’s one of her fancy outfits of her own design:

I hereby promise to you that I will no longer take all of my pictures from my iphone. I thought it was fantastic at first, but the grainy quality is starting to make me feel a little stabby. From now on, it’ll be a good combination of real camera pictures and phone pictures, I solemnly swear.

And here, I received a bona fide Olivia Scout make-over. I’m sorry to make you jealous like that, but I couldn’t help but brag.

But, actually, I would like to do some real bragging for a moment, because THIS was awesome:

99/100 on my latest math test! And this is without the curve added, so it’ll be over 100% when all is done. Annnd this is my second perfect test score in a row. Apparently, I am actually good at math? I know, I’m surprised too.

- Olivia and I couldn’t stand to spend another second indoors on Friday, so we decided to head to the park even though it was blustery and chilly outside. I’m so glad we did. We really had the best time. And I love her.

She made this nest by gathering all the twigs from the bottoms of every tree. Here she is on a stick-scouting expedition.

- The very next day, we woke up to a world covered in snow. She ate breakfast and promptly began to beg and plead to play in the snow. I was like, “No. I’m not doing that. It’s too cold.” But then we compromised by her going in the backyard alone while I sat in the warmth of our home, taking pictures through the windows. Win-win!

She needs snow pants. Bad.

- It’s pretty much like I don’t even need to tell you this, but, WE WENT TO A MIDNIGHT PREMIERE OF BREAKING DAWN ON THURSDAY!

YOU GUYS. My roots do not really look like that! The filter I chose made the light stuff lighter and the dark stuff darker, hence: scariest roots of all time. I mean, yes, they are grown out a little, but it looks much more natural in real life. And anyway, here are our big drinks and big popcorn and also my ticket! What fun! (Even though that big drink made my bladder terribly uncomfortable throughout the movie and I had to take care of business twice.)(I am certain that I’ve never talked about pee on this blog quite as much as I have this evening.)

Alisha, Emily, me. Poor Michelle couldn’t come because she had the flu. But never fear, we’re all going together on Friday. And I will just tell you, I loved that movie. When going in to those movies, you just have to expect the large amounts of cheesy, the occasionally painful acting, and especially the WHAT WAS STEPHENIE MEYER THINKING WHEN SHE WROTE THAT??? parts that make you cringe for those poor actors’ sakes, and then you’re good. And then IT’S good. And also awesome.

In summary, the movie was great. But I did think it was a little weird how they put my face on the popcorn buckets.

Will someone please alert these two handsome gentlemen that I am a married woman? Honestly!

Wake me up when the semester ends.

2011-11-14T01:04:00.001-07:00

A few months ago, I added an obnoxious addendum to Olivia’s bedtime routine. I mean, things were perfect as they were, but when we moved into my mom’s house, I was feeling like Olivia needed a little extra time with me. Which is probably the case, but my SOLUTION is the part over which I’m kicking myself.

The bedtime stories. The ones that I make up, brand new, every night.

It’s not like I don’t love watching her face light up during a particularly good story (they are few and far between, but they do happen occasionally!). And the time spent together is wonderful.

But it’s just so much effort.

My point is this: It’s pretty difficult to come up with new material every night. Like, two separate stories worth of new material.

So, tonight, as I laid my head down on the pillow next to Olivia, and thanks to my injudiciously late night last night, I started to feel my eyelids pulling heavily as I began my story. Something about a fairy? And honestly, I have no idea what I started saying or how long I said it, but at one point, I was pulled forcefully into cognizance by Olivia’s question,

“WHAT’S TINSEL?”

Tinsel? Like, tinsel? Was I really talking about tinsel? Somehow I’d started a story and wandered straight into Christmas decorations.

I explained the purpose of tinsel, then asked her what story I’d been telling. She scrunched her face a little and shrugged. I must have been rambling.

I barely finished the story; it ended with Fairy Santa and People Santa trading places? I kind of drifted back a little while I was telling it, but it seemed to satisfy Olivia, so, at least there’s that.

And now, here are all the recent pics:

Cousins and fancy headwear.

Morning tea with the Queen. The spider pjs really make the outfit. That’s yogurt and Tang, by the way because we are totally CLASSY. (yeah, no.)

This picture makes my heart a little melty.

“Hey, Mom. Take a picture of me posing like this.”

“And like this!”

“And this!”

“And this, too.”

She is so fancy.

Apparently someone told Thomas that this was acceptable behavior. Standing!

This, however, is totally acceptable. Even encouraged.

She loves her baths. To the point of taking regular 1-2 hour baths. (and multiple water re-heatings.) I can get a lot of homework done during these marathons, so I plan them carefully.

She is so proud of herself that she can finally wink! I mean, sure, that’s not winking at all, but nobody tell her that.

She is always collecting fallen leaves. And then stashing them in my car where they dry out and become a crunched up mess.

My friend Brooke had her baby shower this week.

Oh, she is the cutest. And her baby boy will be too, I already know.

P.S. Please tell any fairies or princesses in the immediate area to exercise extreme caution. The mean witch is totally spying on them with her telescope.

Halloween, plus plus.

2011-11-06T00:37:00.001-06:00

Every single autumn, when I open my mom’s fridge and discover the egg nog brightly beaming at me, I think, “This is the year! This year I will take a drink and discover the deliciousness hidden in this yellowish, brown-flecked liquid!”

And every single autumn, I take a hearty swig and remember that it tastes like spiced band-aids.

(And I’m having blogger’s déjà vu. Did I write about this last year, too? If I did, at least you know I’m sincere about the ‘every year’ part.)

My life in October wasn’t really all Vegas trips and half marathons, despite what this blog is currently presenting. Let’s do a picture montage depicting the parts of October that actually included Olivia, shall we?

Drawing a gigantic chicken with chalk. Yes, it has a spectacular wingspan, but my favorite part is the foot that has only one toe and one talon. And the fact that she included the talons at all.

Family picture.

Olivia started swimming lessons a few weeks ago, and, like the creeper mother I am, I snapped a picture while she was learning to float:

Practicing her moves.

She’s pretty good.

Other than a few tears in the first few lessons when she was learning to go underwater, she did really well. It was the very lowest level available, so she didn’t come out as Michael Phelps, but she acquired some new skills. We’ll just keep enrolling her until she learns to swim independently; it’s pretty important to me since she’s around open water a lot in the summer.

At the end of her last lesson on Friday, she received a little certificate saying that she’d passed and was eligible to move on to the next level. She is awfully proud of that piece of paper (it currently resides on the fridge), so we went to Cold Stone to celebrate her success:

She chose pink ice cream with gummy bears, sprinkles, and white chocolate chips. Gummy bears are the worst idea ever, in all eons of time, for ice cream, just so you know.

I have long wondered what my DNA, plus Isaac’s DNA, plus Donald Trump’s DNA would produce. I mean, don’t we all?

I was so ecstatic to finally find out:

Just magnificent.

Here’s some of my nephew Thomas for your viewing pleasure.

We carved a pumpkin! Meaning I did all the hard work scraping it out and suffering hand cramps while cutting it up while she looked on in a somewhat disinterested manner, shouting out occasional dictations about the shapes of his eventual features. So.

And then we had a mean witch for Halloween.

I’ll admit to succumbing to laziness this year. I should have searched out a darling top to complete her outfit, but I was certain she’d end up wearing a jacket anyway (of course, she never did!), so what was the point? But then we had a gorgeous Halloween evening and her jacketless costume seemed a little plain. But guess what? She didn’t care in the least. And I’m pretty sure that’s all that matters.

She adored trick-or-treating this year. Best experience so far, hands down.

She was so brave. She was completely unwilling to let Isaac or me come up to the doors with her. Some of the houses had really long paths up to their door, but she didn’t care. We’d watch the little speck of her knocking on each one, saying trick-or-treat, thank you, then retreating with her candy. Except I had to remind her at every house to turn around and leave at the end; she’d sit and stare at the people after choosing her candy for an uncomfortable length of time, until they’d say something like, “Ok, Happy Halloween!” and still, she wouldn’t budge. Finally, I’d have to yell, “Ok! Say goodbye!” before she would walk away. So fantastically awkward and hilarious.

She wouldn’t even let us walk with her down the sidewalk.

Olivia and Rusty. Little boys in muscle costumes are my favorite ever.

Baby Yoda.

We spent some time trading adoring gazes. #favoriteauntstatus.

Oh, and here’s a picture I forgot to add in my last post. Isn’t that tree gorgeous? Yay, autumn!

Olivia spent the entire day in her fairy outfit. She is obsessed with all things fairy/princess/mean witch. Every night when she goes to bed, she asks for stories including every fairy, every princess, and every mean witch, please! I’ve told some spectacularly lame stories, but as long as they involve the mean witches creating some sort of mischief, the princesses or fairies in peril, and some sort of miraculous rescue from whichever party isn’t currently captured/poisoned/tricked, we’re good.

Pretending to be a captured fairy. She leads an extremely perilous imaginary life.

It’s a race! I hope I win!

2011-11-04T01:23:00.001-06:00

Well, hey! Fancy meeting you here!

I brought a picture of my newest companion:

That whole page is one single problem. We’re not allowed to use calculators in my math class, so it’s adding, multiplying, and dividing fractions (and everything else) by hand. And then! When you go to type your ultimate answer in? And you feel this unholy terror because you’ve just spent the last 30 minutes working towards this one answer? And it’s WRONG?! A small piece of your soul is carried away by the passing breeze, never to be seen or heard from again.

I spent the last 5 months of my life training for a half marathon. Especially near the end, I would wake up pre-sunrise to twinkling stars and 20 degree temperatures in which to run, my ghostly breath visible and smacking me in the face as I passed through it.

Each Saturday morning, the four of us would meet together and run for a couple hours. Just going, going, going. Getting better. Stronger. Pushing ourselves and each other harder. We’d watch the sun rise over the mountains as we ran; talking and laughing, sharing stories and experiences.

My personal runs often felt a little like torture, but I always looked forward to Saturday morning. There’s something about running with people you enjoy that makes the experience approximately four thousand times better.

I already miss it!

Even though I woke up yesterday morning with Olivia rather than my alarm, laughing maniacally about the fact that I got to stay in my warm, cozy bed rather than being outside running while miserably sweating and shivering at the same time. YESSSS.

p.s. somebody remind me tomorrow that I’m not allowed to continue eating the way I did while training. Because we’re about to have a problem.

We held our annual carb-consumption feast the night before the half marathon at Malawi’s after picking up our race packets:

3 pizzas for 3 girls is totally reasonable! And then we maybe had another one to share for dessert. We were sad Michelle couldn’t come.

We went to wait for the buses at 6 a.m. IT WAS SO COLD. Like, frigid Antarctica temperatures while we waited for our buses for a whole hour. Which felt like 7 hours, at least, because time tends to crawl while you are huddled up in a circle, arm-to-arm and leg-to-leg while shivering violently and cursing and shaking your fists and trying not to cry because your tears would freeze into perfect little drops right on your cheeks.

Michelle, Cara, Aislinn, Me

Just to take this picture, we seriously had to uncurl our bodies from that hunched, tense position you take when your core temperature is plunging toward the bottom of the mercury tube.

We finally got to where we were going (in UNheated buses, mind you), only to find a giant tent that was barely semi-warm with body heat. I’ll just tell you: We spent the first three hours as popsicles.

Jennifer R. Ellsworth: Ruining pictures since 1986.

Finally, finally!, it was time to run.

Other racing friends.

We had a sincerely spectacular run. I was so much better prepared than last year, I’d trained for a couple months longer. It was seriously great.

My dad paparazzied us as we ran down the canyon. Just jumped out of woody areas and starting snapping away! Here we are on mile 10. Almost finished.

And let’s all just think about how incredible Michelle is for deciding to start training for our race only 12 short weeks before it began, starting completely from scratch. She’d never run more than a mile or two at a time in her life and she totally just whipped herself into racing shape and then set the pace for US, particularly at the end of our race. She wins! Even though she looks like a robot in that picture up there!

Paparazzi!

Aaaand, I have a t-rex hand. (Every time!!)

The backs of our tanks which Cara made for us:

We did it! 13.1 miles! And I even managed to knock 14 minutes off my time from last year. We finished in 2:04 and my goal was around 2 hours. Winning!

In case you’re curious, here’s my decision to start running, my first race (a 5k!), and last year’s half marathon.

p.s. the title of this post comes from the movie Rat Race and is uttered by Mr. Bean and is awesome.

Get up and shake the glitter off your clothes now.

2011-10-23T22:48:00.001-06:00

I love this time of year.

I am not rolling around in dollars, I’ll tell you that much. If I were to have enough of any sort of money to actually roll in, I’d have to change all my dollars into pennies, and I bet they wouldn’t even come above my hips in a bathtub. There will be no diving into my piles of wealth à la Scrooge McDuck from Duck Tales, is what I’m telling you.

So when Cara and I first started talking during one of our long runs about going on a trip to Vegas together, I realllly wanted to go, but I didn’t think it’d be possible. But THEN! Through a random series of unrelated opportunities, I was able to procure enough money to feel like going could maybe be a possibility. Then we found a great hotel that didn’t make us feel like we’d be sacrificing the safety and security of our physical bodies during our stay, and it was going for an extremely low price! We decided to bring a lot of our own food to cut down expenditures (and who really wants to eat out every meal for three days??), and suddenly, our trip was actually going to happen.

Plus, it was fall break for my school, so I didn’t even miss any classes. WINNING.

Our view through a dirty window.

If we look like we are trying not to laugh because the guy that was taking our picture was really weird and kept cracking terrible jokes, it’s because the guy that was taking our picture was REALLY weird and kept cracking terrible jokes.

We went to see Footloose. It was late(ish) and we were tired, so it ended up being one of the most hysterical movies of my life. I laughed so hard, I cried at one point (at a part that wasn’t supposed to be funny). It was pretty great.

It was also a great learning opportunity. I came out with some fantastic new dancing moves, as evidenced. The next time I go dancing (ha), people are going to be very impressed!

The next day dawned, so we spent it doing really difficult things. Like, laying by the pool, reading magazines, and drinking diet coke.

It’s not really like I normally wear fancy shoes to the pool, but I hadn’t realized that I’d thrown my flip flops under my bed at this point. At least these ones matched?

We stopped in the M&M store to pick a treat up for Olivia. One that would ultimately be ruined by ice sneaking into it and melting while it sat in the cooler. :/ (I am not much into expression faces while typing, but doesn’t that one have so much personality?) Sorry you got the beige/black/white/boring portion of the wall, there were so many people milling about that a full picture of its magnificence was impossible.

That evening, we shopped a little, but mostly exclaimed in shock at $400 skirts and stuff like that because that’s always fun, then found some nourishment provided by Max Brenner.

Apparently that’s what he looks like. We had a tasty meal and then that decadent dessert in the top corner. It’s a sugar waffle with caramelized bananas, crunchy rice crispies, ice cream, those little chocolate ball things, and chocolate sauce. It was pretty fantastic and I’m sure it’s….. I’m sorry, what was I saying? I got distracted by that picture of deliciousness.

And then we came home.

And I was pretty happy to see this face again:

Special thanks to Isaac and Michelle for making my trip possible.

And to our iphones for taking all the pictures because my real camera keeps complaining that its SD card needs to be reformatted, and I’m like, “No, I’m not doing that because you have valuable things I want off of there before everything gets deleted by reformatting, so I’ll make Isaac fix you at some point.” So: crappy quality pictures. Sorry.

The end.

Meet you here next Sunday?

2011-10-16T23:17:00.001-06:00

There isn’t much time to blog (or do anything else) lately. School is increasingly busy and difficult. I have my three hour allotment from Olivia’s bedtime at 9pm until midnight wherein I read chapters, study physiology, research articles, learn math (my class is one where my instructor doesn’t lecture, so we watch TERRIBLE lecture videos provided by the company that wrote our textbook and come to class with questions, rather than spend our time being taught in class), practice math, study physiology, study physiology, and practice math.

But I reserve Sunday nights as my homework free evening. Even though I can’t really spare the evening, I do it anyway. Oh, how I look forward to Sunday nights!

A story: Last night, after she had been in bed for an hour or so, Olivia started yelling that she had to go potty. She got out of bed, went potty, then as I was tucking her back in, I said, “Ok, lay down and go back to sleep.” Then she grabbed the tiny flashlight next to her bed, clicked it on, and said, “No, thanks. I’d rather spend my life looking around at things.”

And who am I to judge with her decisions or tell her how to spend her life?

Chelsea and I took our kids to Pumpkin Land this week:

I was kind of awful at documenting that day (who am I?? I don’t even recognize myself anymore!), but here is my meager offering.

Here’s the only picture I got of Chelsea with her kids and it was totally inadvertent. Try not to get hypnotized by that cat.

The corn maze that we spent ages in because they promised us a treat if we found the secret room with the bucket full of magic beans. The kids couldn’t have cared less about the stupid beans, but Chelsea and I were determined! We totally found it, by the way, but you’ll have to take my word for it since I have no photographic evidence. (but really, who am I??)

I said, “Make a face like a black cat!” and this is what I got:

So.

Olivia and Jack (who is a cross-dressing witch in this photo).

Really, with the faces, Olivia?

p.s. I got an iphone! And I’m on instagram as jeniellsworth. Let’s follow each other.

Walking like a fairy into church today.

Only 21 years until Halloween!

2011-10-10T00:06:00.001-06:00

Olivia was running around screaming at ear-piercing levels the other day. When I asked her to stop, she turned around and said, “HEY! Don’t judge with my decisions!”

And sometimes I wonder: Am I fully equipped to raise this person?

Hey! We were bored recently, so interminably, painfully, outrageously bored, with absolutely nothing to do because the weather went from summer heat headlong into winter freeze in the space of one day. From 80 & sunny to 40 & snowing, just like that. I glanced listlessly about the house, fighting the urge to curl up on the couch with Olivia in front of a movie. I opened a drawer with stacks of construction paper inside and spied the orange and black colors resting on top of the pile. A chain! Let’s make a Halloween chain à la Mrs. Belt’s kindergarten class of 1991! (Oh man, I just had to count on my fingers to figure out in which year I turned five.)

It really wasn’t the fanciest idea of all time, but she was super excited and cut about 50% of the rings out by herself, which is actually a lot of cutting for one little three year old hand. Especially since she cuts a millimeter at a time. Then we realized that there was nary a glue stick in the house, which meant TRIP TO WALMART! which is always an exciting event for Olivia (less so for myself, unfortunately). And, with her $2 glue stick in hand, she glued each of the rings together into a nice, long chain. Finally, we hung it in the bedroom to count down the days until Halloween. Each morning, she scrambles out of bed and the very first thing she says is, “I have to take off another link on my chain!” and each day, she totally screws up her units of time and says something like, “Hooray! Another year closer to Halloween!”

This is the only picture I could get of it:

And now: Olivia’s first on purpose self-portrait:

This is a very important skill to master in this Facebook dominated world, right? Right?

I am so proud.

I cut Olivia’s hair a few days ago. Her hair was so bad. It ended in a point in the middle of her back, so I basically found the top of where it started to move inward toward the point and cut a straight line along it. A nice big triangle of hair, essentially. I cut about 3 inches, which still feels really dramatic. It’s a whole lot shorter, but it looks at least a million times better.

Here are some phone pictures of stuff because I’m too lazy to charge my real camera:

In her tutu which she inherited from her Aunt Emily yesterday.

Michelle, Cara, Aislinn, and I ran 12 miles on Saturday. We decided to run the actual path that we’ll be running in a couple weeks during the half marathon. Including those terrible first miles with the extreme downhill slope. Running downhill may sound like a dream, and it is, at first! But by mile 4, your toes have slammed into the front of your shoes enough to make them bleed and all those muscles that aren’t accustomed to working so hard want to kill you, and your hips and knee joints are sore and aching. And you still have 9 miles to go!

It was still dark when we started. The snow on the autumn trees was so gorgeous and the clouds were right at our level; we could see them swirling around the trees as we ran.

The run ended up being amazing. I felt great the entire time and I think adding a single mile on race day won’t be an issue.

I am pretty sore today, though.

P.S. I made this today. Don’t even act like you’re not impressed.

The basket on the table was Olivia’s request. Nobody tell me that baskets don’t really have rectangular handles.

Life. In snippets!

2011-10-02T23:16:00.001-06:00

- Lately, whenever Olivia is trying to trick me into anything, usually whilst pretending to be a mean witch, she always says something like, “Come on! Just try that magic potion! It’s not poisoned, I trust you! Do it!” or “Come on, this isn’t a trap. I trust you!”

- Every time we’re at the duck pond, she shouts things at them like, “HEY, DUCKS! COME OVER HERE! HEY! COME SEE ME OVER HERE!” and is genuinely disappointed when they blatantly ignore her breadless self. (One of these days I’ll remember to bring bread.)

- She begged me to paint her nails ‘stripey’. She pinky swore that if I’d do this to her nails, she absolutely would not bite them, oh, please, please, I promise, I won’t! I won’t even do that at all, I promise!

And this paint job was completely obliterated the next morning by her teeth.

- Olivia was asking me about why Captain Hook has a hook instead of a hand. I explained that the crocodile ate his hand, so he had to get a hook instead, finishing with, “…and that’s why they call him Captain Hook.” She thought for a moment, then asked, “But what was his name BEFORE that crocodile ate his hand?” And I had no answer for her. I mean, yeah, what was his name?

- Olivia and Rusty spontaneously hold hands when they walk places together. They spent a lot of time together this week:

- This September was the best September of all Septembers! It was so gorgeous and warm. Warm enough to have the kids playing at a little splash park in the last week of the month! And did you know that the Riverwoods mall has a couple of these?? I had no clue! We would have been there all summer! And sorry for the awkward pictures, I was really trying not to get other people’s kids in them.

Plus, they got free balloons at the end. Best day ever!

- Olivia and I do our homework side-by-side. (She calls her preschool work ‘homework’. [Even though she isn’t actually in preschool; she is just doing pages out of a preschool workbook.]) P.S. I actually kind of like stoichiometry.

- Her completed homework. Don’t mind that her ‘I’s look like ‘P’s because she puts the dot right on top of everything. I told her which letters to draw next on ‘green’ and ‘brown’, then showed her on my own paper how to do the ones that she wasn’t sure about. I love her little words! And her backwards 3. And her picture of herself with green eyes and brown hair.

- Emily and I took Olivia on the Sundance ski lift on Friday because we wanted to bask in autumn’s glory.

Me, basking.

We went all the way to the tops of the mountains. It was unbelievably gorgeous.

And then I remembered that I’m actually kind of terrified of heights, plus with no seat belts or anything for Olivia, I was a little bit stressed most of the time. She could have just gone sliding right out! We were really high in the air the majority of the ride. Like, really, really high.

Even seeing this picture of Olivia gives me anxiety.

We’re on top of the world! And terrified!

When we got back on the ground, we explored the area a little:

I love autumn!

And Olivia’s face in this picture!

Also, Sundance is kind of funny because it is such a tourist attraction; it really doesn’t even feel like being in Utah. You don’t see many tourists with cameras around their necks, walking around Provo speaking in foreign languages, is what I’m trying to say. Olivia was a huge hit with the tourists. We had just random people walking by saying, “What a beautiful child!” People were staring at us as we walked around- I am not making it up, I promise. At one point, we were walking past a large group of Asian ladies (if I had to guess, they were Japanese?), all standing in a line. As we walked down the line, there were audible gasps the whole way and lots of pointing and exclaiming about Olivia. One lady bent down, speaking in her language, and cupped Olivia’s cheeks in her hands, cooing to her. Olivia was like, “…..?” So I had her say hi, more gasps!, then we waved goodbye and walked away. It was awesome.

p.s. In a recent conversation (with someone I love, respect, and admire), the person I was talking to was asking questions about my life, what’s been happening, and said something to the effect that I am in a doubly challenging situation because my marriage is struggling and because I have a difficult child. The very thought that I may have conveyed to anyone that Olivia is a difficult child makes me want to curl up and die in a cave where no one could ever find me to rescue me from my fate.

She is three. She certainly has her three year old moments; she whines, cries, is occasionally obstinate- all of it. I try not to sugar coat it because that is all totally normal kid stuff. But she is absolutely the light of my life. She is sunshine, laughter, silliness, teasing, imaginative, vivacious, extremely flexible, and clever. I would never describe her as a difficult child, ever.

Today she played quietly all through General Conference so I could enjoy all four hours, mostly uninterrupted. She is awesome.

(Cara, do you recognize her dress??)

To be a girl.

2011-09-25T22:42:00.001-06:00

She took a bath this evening, one mostly designed to kill some time before the joyous arrival of bedtime. Late evening baths always call for “mermaid hair”, meaning I blow dry her long, dripping snakes of hair into sleek, feathery weightlessness.

Blow dries are special to Olivia Scout. She gazes at herself in the mirror, watching her hair fly around her head, and the expression on her face is always one of pure satisfaction that reads, “I’m beautiful.” You know that unselfconscious knowledge that little girls carry around? The one that tells them they are the most gorgeous creature on earth? I love it. I love it that she has it. Even as I’m certain that at some point, maybe as early as eight? As late as fifteen? It will probably leave her.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to raise a girl. It is not really that raising a girl is more difficult than it would be a boy, I’m not saying that at all, just that the challenges are different. And they are personal, since I’ve been slogging my own way through them for my very self.

I hope Olivia always feels beautiful. But even more, I hope that she realizes that cultivating intelligence, practicing kindness, and persevering to achieve her goals are far more important than winning the genetic lottery. Not to mention they’re a lot more useful in regular life situations.

May she never pick apart her body the way I have and often still do. I hope she understands that, while maintaining a healthy, strong body is an important and worthy cause, her physical imperfections, which she will have just like the rest of us, will only define her as much as she allows them to.

I hope she figures out (preferably before Junior High!) that a man worth loving will love her for her personality and brain, in addition to thinking she’s gorgeous.

Ohhh, I hope she recognizes the sheer madness and unattainability of the expectations of female beauty in the world all around her.

I hope she acknowledges the powerful female role models surrounding her; her grandmothers in particular, who are supreme examples of what strong, courageous womanhood is all about.

(and pretty please let her think her mom is super cool, even when she’s a teenager.)

She was cold, so I let her borrow my sweater. She looked down at herself and said, “I look like Cruella DeVil!” So here we have her Cruella face. You probably haven’t noticed that I think she’s awesome.

Aren’t all chickens female, anyway?

2011-09-22T23:01:00.001-06:00

Well, I haven’t died. Which is probably good news to you. (I hope?) But I have been really, just really busy. In fact, I’m making kind of a terrible decision in blogging tonight instead of studying for my quiz tomorrow on cell metabolism and diffusion/osmosis/active transport, but at least it’s a terrible decision that I’m aware of making and to which I tip my hat. Yes, decision, you are acknowledged. I willingly accept the consequences, thankyougoodbye.

Another terrible decision: kettle corn AND ice cream as an Olivia’s-in-bed-HOORAY!!! treat. Please choose me as a role model on a more studious, less caloric evening, please and thank you.

So, Olivia has this thing with saying, “Oh, chickens!” as kind of an exclamation like, “Oh, crap!”. She says it came from a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but I can’t really verify that since I fall asleep on the couch every time that show comes on. Later, she picked up, “Aw, nuts!” from the same show, different episode. And wouldn’t you know, my innocent little daughter has started mixing her favorite exclamations into one colorful one: “Oh, chicken nuts!”

Oh, no. There is always this moment where I’m torn between laughter and censure. Chicken nuts? What am I even supposed to do with that? And if I know one thing about Olivia, it’s that to make any type of comment about it will make it stick in her brain forever and always. Suddenly it’ll be a BIG DEAL. So, she gets to keep her favorite phrase and I get to keep hoping it’ll phase out eventually.

And of course her dad thinks it’s hysterical.

This is the only thing I could think of to follow up such a story:

Right?

Olivia got a license plate for her tricycle:

She is a legit motorist on the road these days. (at least until 10-12-11.)

Emily and I took the kids to Discovery Park the other day. Unfortunately, it was the only day in recent history that the skies exploded into a torrential downpour, plus the lightning and thunder was so brilliant and loud, we thought we might go simultaneously deaf and blind, and wouldn’t that be the worst?

There is a little person in there if you look closely enough.

It was a pretty big bummer since we drove 20 minutes out there, and the kids didn’t even get to explore half the park. Lame.

I feel like this picture isn’t indicative of how wet I really got from running for maybe 5 seconds to get inside the car. Once the rain started dumping on us, we mad-dashed it to my car with a child in each person’s arms. Rusty was so wet, he spent the ride home tilting his head down and watching the water siphon off his hair. Plus my pants never dried the whole day and I started having terrible déjà vu regarding the never-ceasing sodden ends of pants in the winter. Oh, it’s so gross!

Oh, hey! I ran a 10k! (rhyming!)

I ran it with my friends Cara and Aislinn. It was my favorite race to date. I’ve done a couple 5ks and a half marathon, but the 10k is the perfect distance. (this is an after photo, so don’t judge our sweatiness!)

Good night!

A thought plus a photo dump.

2011-09-11T23:22:00.001-06:00

I was innocently sitting on Friday night, when a nasty mood wriggled its ugly self right into my emotional atmosphere. It was instantaneous and likely hormone-driven (as my face has recently exploded), and it was mean.

I consider myself a fairly even-tempered individual. Mostly cheerful, not much for wallowing in self-pity.

Oh, but Friday, I wallowed. It wasn’t even specific to anything! School stress, my family situation, cavities in my teeth; just everything was bad, I hated it, wahhh! Even as I rolled about in my despair, that cool, collected part of my brain whispered, “This is silly. This is pointless. If anything, you should be wallowing about the fact that you’re being so embarrassing right now.”

So, I went to bed.

I woke up at the moonlit hour of 6 a.m. to run with Cara and Aislinn, then arrived back home before Olivia awoke. Throughout my day, simple, but sweet things continually happened. I was proud of my body for running a long, difficult distance. Olivia came to me, with her heart in her eyes, and told me, “I love you, Mommy.” I nearly burst into tears. I held a chubby, gurgly baby who beamed at me when I kissed him. Cara gave me a gigantic bag of beautiful clothes from her own closet (this was not such a small thing, actually). I got texts and emails from people who were randomly thinking about me. The whole day was like this! (except when BYU lost, but I don’t want to talk about it!)

As I lay in my bed last night, I thought about the stark difference between my terrible evening the night before and my lovely, cheerful day that followed it.

I think sometimes we need the bitter that we experience from life’s trials to really appreciate the sweetness of our blessings. And I’m not really sure I would have even noticed most of the things that stood out so starkly yesterday if I hadn’t been feeling so terrible the night before. If everything were lovely all the time, the small and simple joys would get lost in the shuffle, I think.

The best part is, none of the things I was bemoaning had been fixed; I still face the exact difficulties. But, somehow, my burden feels much lighter when I remember that my blessings exceed my trials by at least a million degrees.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Now I’m going to dump all my recent phone photos on you.

It is cold enough to wear jackets! (and also pajama pants when no other pairs of pants were easily at hand.)

Emily drew that crown, and while we were chatting, Olivia snuck up and drew herself underneath it.

If you are immune to dimpled baby hands, then you’re probably a robot.

After running around and around the backyard, Olivia plopped down. Out of breath, she said, “Whew. I just ran a half marathon!”

I left Olivia with my mom while I went off to take a quiz at my school. When I came back, she was dressed up in this outfit that they’d found in the dress-up bin, and I couldn’t get it off her the entire day.

She even slept in it.

I lose. Literally.

2011-09-08T23:27:00.001-06:00

I don’t know why they allow me to waltz around pretending to be “normal” and also “functional in regular society”. For real. You will rarely meet anyone so scattered and confused/forgetful/excruciatingly mentally incapacitated as I.

Exhibit A: Last winter, I visited a bathroom at my school, only to leave my priceless textbooks and notebook sitting on a shelf, on which I’d placed them whilst washing my hands. I realized they were missing during my next class when I went to grab my notebook under my chair and discovered a nice blank space of EMPTY. I had to run clear across campus to grab my books off the shelf, but at least they were still there. Facepalm.

Exhibit B: Last semester, the one which we will refer to simply as ANATOMY, I visited another bathroom on campus. I placed my gigantic lab book (estimated value: PRICELESS.)(but more realistically, like, $200.) on another shelf to wash my hands AND! Left my book on the shelf while I pranced off into the distance. Only to realize my book was missing when I got home and tried to do my 19 pages of homework and memorization of approx. 4,500 terms for the week. I frantically searched my school the next day and it was nowhere. Until finally, I walked into my class the next day with a heavy heart and an empty–of-terms brain, when a random man (or was he an angel?) came into the room with my gigantic book in hand, asking to whom it might belong. I don’t know how he came into possession of my important book, and I don’t care. But also, facepalm.

Exhibit C: Last Friday, I was fulfilling a physiology class obligation, and just as I was about to leave, I decided a quick stop in the bathroom would be necessary. I placed my books on the very same shelf on which I lost my anatomy book, eyed them, and reminded myself, “Self. You do NOT forget these.” I washed my hands and got distracted by something shiny. THEN I LEFT MY TEXTBOOK. AGAIN. I mean, REALLY?! The problem this time is that I have bi-weekly reading quizzes, they are a significant portion of my grade, so I can’t just NOT have a textbook. So, after realizing it was missing that evening, I cried, then I called Isaac and cried, then I went upstairs and pouted, then I ate some ice cream, then I went and bought ANOTHER book. Because I had to! Facepalm!

So I’ve been harassing the Lost and Found Department, where I talk to the same tired lady every day and she tells me, “I don’t have any Physiology textbooks!” and then my heart resumes its residence in my stomach. I’ve talked to janitors, checked classrooms, and badgered department head secretaries.

I have until sunset tomorrow to return my new book (or whenever that bookstore closes). So, if my old book doesn’t resurface by then, I’ll have spent something like $400 on a single textbook. Well, two single textbooks, but you know what I mean. I die.

If you see any Physiology textbooks in your general vicinity, will you bring it to me?

But aren’t you glad to know that I’m a valiant hand-washer?

And don’t you think it’s time I bought a backpack so that I wouldn’t have to carry any of these things in my hands, thereby reducing the risk of leaving important things in every bathroom on campus?

Photo shoot.

2011-09-04T23:26:00.001-06:00

Olivia and I had some pictures taken by my incredibly talented cousin Alaina this week. (her website + her facebook.) She wanted to experiment with morning light, and we were very willing subjects.

Alaina is really the best. Some of these pictures are fully edited, others aren’t (and are still completely beautiful); she had a big shoot coming up and knew she wouldn’t have time to fix them all up for me any time soon, but wanted for me to be able to see my pictures asap. So she brought my cd over the very same day. All for a free shoot where we “helped” her, but I secretly think she gave me a lot more than we gave her.

Probably Olivia’s best smile of the shoot. She wasn’t all that interested in complying that morning.

This whole sequence cracks me up:

I love her little arm around my shoulders.

Aaand that face.

Even when she was trying to comply, she ended up with a grimace-smile. I kind of like her crazy sticking-out hairs over there. They pretty accurately convey her personality, I think.

If it looks like I’m sitting on nothing over there on the side, it’s because I’m sitting on nothing over there on the side.

“I have rocks in my shoes!!!”

Having a little talk that was like, “If you take more pictures with me, I’ll buy you french toast from a restaurant!” Which I wouldn’t call bribery, per se, more like positive reinforcement, yes?

You can see how well my positive reinforcement went over. (but she did get her french toast.)

Thanks, Alaina!

Some items of business.

2011-08-28T00:20:00.001-06:00

- It’s been funny watching this transformation from toddler to big girl in Olivia. Suddenly she is sprouting the tiniest freckles all over the place. She has one just above the corner of her mouth. It is miniature, but I can’t help but notice it whenever I look at her and it makes me feel all weird inside knowing something has permanently changed the landscape of her face. You know?

- Snow White is the lamest Disney princess of all time. What, a handsome guy with super great prospects shows marked interest, so you scream in his face and run away? Only to peek out your curtains at him like a four year old? For real.

- There might be nothing better than the spectacularly noisy thunderstorm occurring outside my open windows this very moment.

- I saw on pinterest that bobby pins are meant to be worn with the bumpy side against the head. I feel like the whole world just tilted a little further on its axis. I will likely continue wearing them the way I always have, regardless. (but isn’t that weird?)

- I ran eight miles with Cara today and I’ve got a black toenail and three blisters to prove it.

- Colin Firth will forever and always be the best Mr. Darcy ever.

- If you haven’t seen the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, I don’t know what you’re waiting for. Emily and I are watching it currently and we can hardly contain ourselves. Just now, Mr. Darcy is confessing his undying love to Lizzie in the most unflattering way possible (“In vain, I have struggled. It will not do!”) and it is AWESOME. Also read the book, for crying out loud.

- Olivia spent hours today frolicking in her swimsuit and playing in the sprinkler. I spent hours today sitting on a blanket in the grass, reading my book. It felt incredibly decadent, but she didn’t require much more from me than the occasional comment, and I would have just been sitting there staring at her, so I decided to pull out my book. Please bless that she lets me do that again sometime.

She spent most of her time sitting in that bucket. Did you just read that passage from my book?

- Emily and I were feeling a little reckless at 10 pm a couple nights ago, so we hiked the Y. NOBODY TELLS YOU HOW HARD THAT HIKE IS. I mean, I guess we were literally climbing a mountain, but seriously! It was ridiculous! Maybe it was extra hard because it was the middle of the night? And because I was afraid a literal BYU cougar would pounce on us?

I didn’t take this picture, but here’s the Y mountain.

Emily was reallllly happy to make it.

Here’s a somewhat blurry picture in which I appear to be gleaming. I felt like I was going to slide backwards right down the mountain.

This picture cracks me up. We were so drunk from the experience of nearly dying from falling off cliffs about 17 times that we could not get a decent picture to save our lives. And then I pretended to sleep on Emily’s shoulder and Emily made this face. (Do you guys think that maybe I was adopted? I think I might be a different race than my own sister.)

- If you are an RSS reader, I spent my whole night changing things around on the old girl. Stop by and check her out?

She named it CircleCircleStarStarCircle.

2011-08-25T00:46:00.001-06:00

I figure it’s probably my fault. I was the one sleeping, after all.

“No, no! You stay in bed, I’ll go get her!” he said with a sunshiney countenance and innocence beaming so bright, I had to close my eyes against it. Or maybe I was just really tired?

And anyway, what self-respecting, knows-what’s-good-for-her, living, breathing, intelligent mother refuses that kind of offer at seven a.m.?

One that is not me. And also one that is crazy.

So I slept.

An hour or so later, I was startled into awareness by an excited shriek of, “MOM!!!!” beside my bed. I blearily coaxed an eyelid open to discover my pajama clad, wild-haired daughter, proudly presenting a tupperware container housing a furry something within its depths.

I was afraid to ask. Luckily, I didn’t have to. “Daddy caught me a BAT! We went bat hunting! And then I found this snail! And we put the bat in here!”

Now, I don’t know your life. But I’m pretty sure that I can speak for the whole of womankind when I say that a plastic contained, likely rabies ridden rodent (alliteration!) with freakily long elbows (for real, their elbows are the grossest), is on, like, the very bottom of the Things I Like To See Before I Have A Chance To Pee In The Morning list.

But the thing is, she was SO EXCITED. So I indulged her by carrying the container around for about 10 minutes before I persuaded her that it was probably a mommy bat which needed to get back to her babies. Which isn’t exactly a lie, since I am not well-versed in the gender specifics of bats, therefore I have no way of knowing if her pet was male or female.

I’ll admit that I thought the bat was a medium amount of cute when we dumped it out and watched it fly away. And then we scrubbed ourselves down.

The next time I left Olivia alone with her father, I came back to discover Olivia wearing her Nana’s apron as a dress:

But she was really wearing it so she wouldn’t get her white shirt dirty while she ate her lunch, so 70 bonus points to Isaac.

(I did get around to doing her hair at some point that day. I’m pretty sure, anyway.)

And then we did some more swimming.

I keep thinking that her hair isn’t very long lately, but then I see this picture and I’m like, “Oh. Yeah. It kind of is.”

Ok, so this next video is big news for Olivia. BIG NEWS! When we got there at the beginning of the week, we couldn’t persuade Olivia to step into the pool without massive amounts of floatation devices. The baby swimmer thing, her arm floaties, the kickboard and still she’d be begging to be pulled around, and would freak out if anyone tried to let go.

By the end of our trip, she was darting around the pool like she owned the place with just her little arm floaties on. It was seriously hilarious to watch her little arrhythmic kicks as she completed lap after lap after lap, just swimming with reckless abandon.

Today, back home, she was depressed because she couldn’t swim in Nana’s pool.

I love this picture. Just swimming free like a little fish in the sea. (rhyming!)

Here is the one and only picture of me from the entire trip. Don’t judge me because I didn’t wash my hair most days. What is the point if you’re going right out into the water, is what I’d like to know?

After swimming we ate popsicles.

Or Crème Brulee Haagen-Dazs. She didn’t really get much of this ice cream, but would you believe that when I tried to take it from her, she got these wild eyes, then grabbed onto the back of my shirt and wouldn’t let go, all while screaming, “NOOOOOOO!!!! I WANT THAAAAT!!!!”

At which point I realized Haagen-Dazs has crack inside. It’s the only explanation. Olivia has never responded to anything like that, ever. She let me drag her around while she held on to the back of my t-shirt!

Don’t let her radiant innocence fool you.

And anyway, now we’re all depressed because our vacation is over and school starts next week, and [insert more whiny complaints here].

Here’s one last picture of Olivia. She gets car sick, and, in an attempt to thwart all, “My tummmmyyyy-eeeee!!” shrieks, we purchased a little container of Sprite for her very own consumption.

She thought she was the bee’s knees with her very own soda.

And it totally worked on her stomach (even if it was only a placebo effect, and to be honest, I’m not really sure either way.)

P.S.! Google Reader is doing all sorts of funky stuff with my posts lately. Sometimes they are non-existent, sometimes they show up days later. All of this is to say, if it seems like I haven’t posted in an inordinate period of time, and you follow me through Google Reader? I probably have posted. So just come to the actual blog. It’s really annoying. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Our plans for tomorrow include swimming.

2011-08-19T23:17:00.001-06:00

I got that psychotic menace of a wisdom tooth removed two days ago, thanks to my super dentist of a father in law!

The joy! The sheer glory of being able to move my mouth around without being scraped by that monster of a tooth 16. (This being its anatomical tooth number, after all. And I maybe felt a little thrill when the dental assistant was asking my FIL, “Are we doing number one or sixteen?” and then I blurted out, “Sixteen!” because I totally knew what she was talking about. Yesss! Anatomy!)

I have a resultant hole back there that my tongue can’t seem to resist. Tongues are the nosiest about such things, have you noticed?

My mom promised to hold a tooth funeral. I asked that she mention his tenacity and zest for a better life on the outside of my gums during the eulogy. Adios, Senor Tooth.

We are still on our little vacation; school starts in ten days, but don’t remind me!

Here’s a picture of Olivia right before we left for our long, nigh never ending car trip:

Am I the only one who makes sure her kid is wearing a really soft outfit for long car drives?

Olivia and Nana read a book about mummies one night, and next thing I knew, her Nana dressed her up like this:

Oooohmygoooosh, my camera is the WORST about inside pictures. It’s like, “Gahlkdlakjfasdfn! I can’t!!!” every time I try to take a picture inside. Also, try not to get too distracted by Roxie’s cyborg eyes back there.

Note the dirt on her face. I really try to keep her clean, you guys!

Our entire trip so far can be adequately described in the next few pictures.

Swimming.

More swimming. (and posing with leaves, a new favorite [?].)

Oh, yes. And the swimming. In the baby swimming boat thing.

But wait, look:

Baby Olivia (6 months, maybe?).

Grown up Olivia.

Baby Olivia. (16 months, and a crappy facebook picture, sorry.)

Grown up Olivia. With a new scar.

I die.

We went out for sushi today because we had several things to celebrate: 1. a five year anniversary, 2. my straight A semester (even though I was pretty sure about my grades, they were posted today, which made things official), 3. Olivia’s successful nighttime potty training endeavor (which I will be posting about soon. I swear no one talks about p.m. potty training? Maybe everyone does day and night at the same time, just not me?).

Attacking herself with chopsticks.

Becoming a chopstick duck.

Dipping her sticks in soy sauce and licking them off because she couldn’t wait another second for her sushi.

P.S. I am training for my next half marathon, but being in a perma 95 degree environment makes running outside challenging. I’ve been doing my runs on my SIL Corisa’s treadmill, and check out the view I’ve got when I turn my head to the side:

Dude, Edward is staring me down during my entire run! It’s very distracting! But weirdly motivating? SO. Now you know.

She will probably be bitter about this someday.

2011-08-15T22:00:00.001-06:00

Olivia may have spent the night in a hotel shower recently:

I’d probably feel worse about it if she hadn’t thought it was the most spectacular place she’d ever laid her head in her entire life.

Hotel shower for the WIN.

Decisions (suck).

2011-08-11T23:18:00.001-06:00

Here I sit. My fifth wedding anniversary and I’m pajama clad, alone.

The last two and a half months have been difficult, to say the least. Have you noticed the way difficult times coincide with that stretching, totally uncomfortable type of personal growth? It’s pretty annoying.

I think the trickiest part about this whole deal has been the fact that everything comes down to me. My decision. It has felt a little like everyone’s eyes have been watching me, waiting for me to make my choice. To their immense credit, each of those asking eyes has had admirably silent mouths.

Truly, nobody is pushing, questioning, or prodding. No, “You need to do this,” or, “Do you plan on taking infinity days to sort this all out?” Just lots of love and support. Could I be any luckier?

I want to tell you about my experience these last couple months. To warn you: I’m about to get pretty long winded and maybe a little religiousy, but I want to share my authentic account. I don’t really know why I want to, but I just do.

Never, not even once, have I questioned whether moving out was the right choice for my relationship. It was a do or die situation, and I’m not that interested in dying. That is vague. But sometimes it can be easy to choose the devil you know over the devil you don’t, something at which I’m completely awesome. I’d been doing it for a very, very long time.

Over and over, it’s been confirmed to me that, regardless of the discomfort and sadness involved, spending this time at my parents’ is completely necessary. Ok, great. I knew that I’d made the right choice. But what comes next? I cannot tell you the amount of time I’ve spent agonizing over this question. Such a huge, monumental, life-changing question. One I did not feel adequate to face.

One of my favorite tenets of my faith is that we believe in seeking personal revelation from God. In fact, we are urged to seek direction and confirmation from God in any number of capacities (like when we’re seeking religious truth, or “ I think I want to marry this guy?”, or “Oh, awesome, I just moved into my parents’ house, that was horrifying. You approve, yes?”), but we are especially encouraged to check in with the really big, life altering types of decisions. This is not a specifically Mormon principle, James 1:5 asks all of His children to seek answers from God. I truly believe that Heavenly Father wants to hear from His children. I firmly believe in this process; so many times I’ve received the guidance I was seeking. Through it, I’ve had all sorts of peace and courage with which to face life.

So I began to ask. So earnestly, I was asking. And kind of begging and pleading, too.

But I felt a whole bunch of silence.

I got a little more desperate. I did everything I knew to do. I began to wonder if maybe I was doing it all wrong? Maybe if I asked differently? Maybe I was slacking in some area?

I started to feel really frustrated. Have I ever asked a question with bigger consequences?? Have I ever needed guidance more than I do at this moment?! And then I wanted to shake my fists at the heavens (never a good plan).

In retrospect, I already had my mind set. I was asking a question, but I had my own answer that I wanted to hear. Does this make sense? And the silence? Wasn’t really silence. I began to feel the stirrings of an idea; but I stifled it. It was crazy! And I wanted nothing to do with it!

I felt a lot like Jonah, from the Bible. Remember how God called Jonah to go to Nineveh? Jonah’s response is along the lines of, “OH! Wow! I mean, great idea, only except I know what’s in Nineveh! I politely decline!” and then he floats off in a boat and gets swallowed by a whale. I have been avoiding large bodies of water specifically because I do not feel like becoming a component of whale vomit.

So, finally, as I became as wild-eyed and frenzied about a thing as I’ve ever been about anything, ever, I did something. I was so desperate, so completely out-of-my-mind psycho about this decision, that I dropped every single pre-conceived notion I’d been harboring. In a sort of quiet defeat, I basically said, “I will do anything. Just any single thing. Please, I need guidance.” And I really meant it. This was the difference, I think. I’d never actually meant it. I kind of always meant, “I will do what you want me to! …As long as it’s what I want to do!”

Little things began to fall into place. Big things began to align themselves beautifully, to perfectly match themselves to that niggling idea that I’d so heartily smothered.

“Fine,” I said, “I will do this.”

And I began to feel peace. Some pretty glorious, tremendously vital to my sanity, peace.

We are leaving to California on Sunday, the three of us, for a little vacation. Because it feels right.

I want to be clear: “Because it is right” does not mean all will be perfect. I feel like these answers from Heavenly Father are like being shown the next step on a grand staircase- bear with me for a second- we cannot see the top, but it sure is helpful to be sure of the next step sometimes. This is my rightful next step. To wherever it takes us.

For right now it’s taking us to a nice, sunshiney place where I’ll be able to get this stupid tooth out of my mouth. (my father in law is a dentist.) Yesssss.

I can die happy, at least.

2011-08-07T23:49:00.001-06:00

I was the lamest of all parents today.

I have this wisdom tooth; it’s trying to gain access to my mouth through any means necessary, despite the fact that there’s simply no room in this inn. If this means ripping its way much too high, too far toward my cheek, if it means punching a hole into the back of my mouth in its urgency to arrive, then SO BE IT!

The pressure on the back of my jaw is making it impossible to open my mouth very far. The only foods that can find clearance are those the width of an Oreo or less. And maybe I’ve eaten a lot of Oreos today. A body needs calories to function, you guys!

Anyway, on top of the errant, sadistic tooth, I’ve got a swollen gland and tonsil (both next to Rambo-tooth), a raging sore throat, a headache, chills, and I was trying to decide which bed to bestow the title of ‘death’ upon, because I was probably going to need it.

When I woke up to Olivia’s calls this morning, I could feel the presence of my wisdom tooth hammering away at the back of my mouth. I couldn’t move my jaw much, and my throat was really sore, so when I tried to speak, it came out all raspy and sounded like, “Oli-yah, do you wah breh-fass? Come ‘ere. Wha you wanna ea?” She shot me an alarmed glance and asked, “Why’re you talkin’ weird like that?”

So I spent the majority of the day laying on the floor of whatever room Olivia chose to occupy, huddled into a little mass of Pathetic. I am becoming endlessly thankful for her newly developed ability to play independently. (but she chooses to be very selective about when she uses her new talent.) She spent the entire day today creating games out of random objects while I lay in a corner whimpering. At one point she asked to go to the bathroom, we went, I laid on the rug (which is brand new and also I vacuumed it just yesterday, so don’t get grossed out), and she discovered all sorts of things to do in there.

At this point I had my phone handy. From my vantage point on the floor:

She is stacking our ample selection of shampoos. She smelled each one, weighed them, and rearranged them fifty times.

She is also still in her pajamas. At 3 forty five in the afternoon.

Here’s to hoping for a better day of health tomorrow.

I saw this little poem on Pinterest, and it really resonated with me:

Because, today especially, but most days, in general, I could use a reminder to be patient and speak kindly. Which are, ironically, the things I am asking Olivia to do ALL THE TIME. But I should probably be asking myself a little more often, as well.

I will be pretty sad some day, when days of picnics with my Olivia Scout are over.

I am lucky to be a mom. And I don’t always remember that.

Here are some pictures of stuff:

Please look at this picture and notice the spectacular length of that snake’s tongue. We were at Rusty’s house celebrating his potty training and the fact that he’s, in his own words, an ‘Unnawear Boy!’ now.

Olivia just loves Thomas. Thomas thinks she’s terrifying.

A picture Olivia drew of ants and snails the other day on her paper towel from her lunch. The cheerful little ants are my favorite.

Yesterday, before my mouth decided to mutiny, Cara and I attended a Tim McGraw concert. She got me a ticket for my birthday, hooray!

I don’t know why I chose to stand like a pageant queen.

We were pretty far from the stage, but luckily, Mr. McGraw decided to come into the audience, right next to us (!!) for his first two songs.

He doesn’t really shine like a Golden God of the Heavens.

OR DOES HE?

No, he doesn’t. But can you get over how close he was to us?

It was such a fun show. The people-watching was PHENOMENAL, as you can imagine, and Tim put on a great show. I was comforting myself today, as I waited in my agonizing pain to die, that dying wouldn’t really be so bad after such a great night as last night. Right?

Olivia beats me to another life experience.

2011-07-31T23:49:00.001-06:00

“Does my new ball float?” Olivia asked me, standing on the edge of the toilet. Her hands splashed in the water she’d trapped in the bathroom sink as she waited for my reply.

“Don’t know,” I responded distractedly, scrubbing my fingernail with a nail polish remover soaked cotton ball.

“I want to see if—”

I saw her sudden movement out of the corner of my eye and glanced up just in time to watch her chin crash into the granite countertop. I heard the crunch of her teeth knocking together and the thud of her head smacking the side of the toilet when she hit the floor. Then she was a little crumpled heap, sandwiched between the toilet and cabinet.

There was a pause. You always know it’s going to be bad if there’s a pause.

“WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

I snapped out of my stunned paralysis, snatched her up, and cradled her in my arms.

I checked her teeth first; I’ve never recovered from the time she chipped her front tooth. Anytime she hits anywhere near her mouth? I pry her lips open to make sure they’re all still intact in there.

Just as I was heaving a great sigh of relief for the safety of her chompers (and just as I decided I might actually go deaf from how loud she was continuing to scream), I saw her bloody hand flutter up to my face.

“Where is the blood coming from?” I shouted.

I tilted her head back to see a gaping red wound in that fleshy place between neck and chin. The blood welled over, so I dove for the nearest thing I could find to staunch the flow. Toilet paper. (It is not really the best thing for prolific bleeding, let’s put it that way.)

Fortunately, my sisters, Emily and Alisha, had entered the bathroom. Emily grabbed a washcloth and tossed it to me. As I replaced the toilet paper, I peeked at her gash again. I could see little yellow gobs of fat and the sheen of muscle, then an outgush of blood came oozing, so I clapped the washcloth onto her neck.

Crap. She was going to need stitches.

She calmed down relatively fast, given the fact that her neck was trying to pump her lifeblood right out of her body. She sat calmly on the couch, watching me with a tear streaked face while I gathered the things I’d need for the InstaCare with shaking hands. In unspoken agreement, Alisha, Emily, Olivia, and I piled into the car. I was glad for the extra support.

The InstaCare was empty, so we were admitted immediately (much to Olivia’s frustration, she didn’t even get a chance to play with toys!). The dude that took her blood pressure and temperature was a gruff, aging man with gigantically overgrown mutton chops curling right off his face. He was a reeeeaaal charmer. I thought Olivia might have a heart attack.

She allowed him to examine her, but started to cry when he tried to move her washcloth to get a look at her cut. She was terrified. It took some coaxing, but she finally allowed him to put a cotton ball slathered in lidocaine on her chin (does the word lidocaine remind anybody else of iocane, as in iocane powder, as in my dear, sweet Westley?? Please know what I’m talking about?). She whimpered as the cold gel penetrated her cut, but sat still without trying to remove it.

Finally the doctor entered. Oh, I was sick.

Olivia was in relatively good spirits; the lidocaine (powder) had numbed her a little. She showed the doctor her cut, answered a few questions, then he was laying her down giving me instructions to hold her head. My sisters took her hands and feet. He placed a paper bib over Olivia’s face, leaving only her chin exposed, so she couldn’t see what was happening.

The worst part was the numbing shots. ShotS. Inside her wound. She cried and screamed, “That hurts! No! That hurts!” but didn’t thrash or move. She is a good egg. She tries so desperately to please people; she knew she had to be still, so instead of pushing us away, she lay perfectly flat while screaming about the pain. It was sad.

Once she was sufficiently numb, things were much better. She received four bright blue stitches. She cried occasionally while they went in, but was easily distracted by my streaming monologue about Yogurtland, Nana’s house, and what toppings should she choose when she gets the frozen yogurt she surely deserves after such an ordeal? She was so brave. And I love her.

The picture I sent her dad right as she was finished. You can’t see the stitches, but you can see her red little eyes from crying.

I cannot keep this child’s face clean to save my life, but here are her four little stitches! (It’s weird how little the cut looks when it’s all stitched up.) I can’t believe how much better they’ve looked each successive day. This picture was taken yesterday (Saturday), she received the stitches on Friday, and they looked even better today.

Her yogurt. She deserved a treat, for real.

We need some levity after all that, so here’s Olivia singing a song of her own composition:

(we were sitting outside watching a storm, hence her song topic.)

And here is one about parks. She REALLY likes parks.

We don’t really go to the park every day.

Her stitches haven’t bothered her even remotely since she got them in. She’s had no medication or anything. It’s just business as usual. Today she asked if she could make a recipe. I was like, “Um, yes? I guess?” So she asked for a hard boiled egg, lettuce, ham, broccoli, carrots, snap peas, cheese, and ranch dressing. The only thing I turned down was mandarin oranges. Because that sounded nasty with all the other ingredients and I wanted her to actually eat it, you know?

Her fancy recipe turned out to be a regular salad, but don’t tell her that!

She ate the whole thing, exclaiming, “Oh, WOW! These ingredients are making my recipe so amazing!”

Is that title too cryptic? I’m trying to tell you I’ve never had stitches. First she beats me to surgery, now she is getting stitches. I’m beginning to feel like I’ve lived in a plastic bubble?

I am obviously related to Voldy, too.

2011-07-28T23:31:00.001-06:00

*ALERT: FIRST WORLD PROBLEM BELOW*

I’ve been feeling terribly stressed about writing this post. There are so many pictures and stories and things to convey! Should I break it up into days of posts? Should I ball it up into one gigantic monster and wash my hands of it, once and for all? Would people fall asleep, right on their keyboards? Will I get comments complaining of eye strain and the resultant keyboard malfunctions of the previous sentence? You can see my dilemma. (Almost as big of a dilemma as actually remembering how to spell ‘dilemma’.)

Let’s try something, shall we? I’m just going to go for it. And you are going to pretend to be surprised because we all know this is what I do every time, anyway.

Ok.

I took Olivia to the Williams Family Reunion this week. This is my mom’s side of the family, featuring my grandma (grandpa passed away some years ago), the seven Williams siblings, their offspring, and their offspring’s offspring. Enough of us that I have a hard time keeping track of how any of them are related to Olivia. My cousin’s daughter, for example. Wouldn’t my cousin’s daughter be my own second cousin? But then what is my second cousin to my own child? Does anyone actually know? Is this where people start throwing in ‘twice removed’? Could it be ‘thrice removed’? And what happens when it gets to four? It wouldn’t be ‘fourth removed’, right? But then what would the word be for that number? And does anyone feel like I’ve used more than my allotment for question marks in a single blog post?

SO! Monday morning, I woke Olivia at 6:30 A.M., Alisha picked us up in her car, then we hopped on a train to reach Salt Lake City for the Days of ‘47 parade, where we’d join with some family. Utah has a holiday named Pioneer Day to commemorate when the pioneers first reached the Salt Lake Valley; there is a big parade and people get another opportunity to light themselves/their houses/random fields on fire because fireworks are legal again. Hooray! Pioneers!

We could have easily driven the whole way, but I knew Olivia would think riding on a train was the grandest of all adventures. Plus, arriving just a block away from our spot in the parade without having to find parking was a definite perk.

She sincerely, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Olivia had never been to a parade, so I was worried she’d get bored, tired, hot, or grouchy. Even all of those at once.

My cousin Angie in the right corner with her sons, Hayden and Torrin, my uncle Marc, me, baby Grayson, Olivia, Alisha, Aunt Jan in the hat, Uncle Kent, and Uncle Randy behind them. Just FYI.

I will never, ever be fortunate enough to get seats like that for a parade again. We just walked right up to where my aunts and uncles were stationed and plopped down into our perfect seats in the very front. It was awesome. The weather was overcast and breezy, completely perfect. It even drip dropped on us for a second, which felt heavenly.

We love parades! Olivia did really well. She stayed entertained up until the last five minutes or so. Suddenly she was very bored, but just as I was deciding how to deal with it, the parade was over! So we hopped back on a train and headed home.

She HATED the bands. Thankfully she had a personal ear coverer waiting in the wings.

Monday afternoon, we drove up through the canyon, past Heber, to a little campground called River’s Edge. I don’t even know how many cabins our family occupied. Probably a lot.

Ours had a cute little deck overlooking the river in our backyard.

O and Rus enjoyed the view. I almost just said they look like an old married couple sitting together until I realized they’re cousins, and that’s creepy. So, instead: Here they are, looking like old, married to other people (to whom they are definitely not related), cousins, enjoying the view.

Me, Michelle, and that chubby legged baby Thomas.

The kiddos made a little bed in the closet.

And ate oranges by the river.

That night we had a family meeting. Olivia was terribly bored, so I handed her my camera. She took 40-something pictures, mostly of my stomach and derriere (which I’m not sharing, and I can tell you’re disappointed!). But she got this one of her terribly filthy feet:

I didn’t realize the campground was mostly dirt, so I only brought sandals. Our feet were really dirty, is what I’m saying.

The next day brought a river rafting expedition for those without young children. Michelle and I couldn’t go with our little ones, so we met them at the end. It was the windiest day ever of all time.

I brought my mis-matchy jacket as kind of an afterthought, but I was so thankful I had it! My ruffle on my shirt was waving around like an extra patriotic flag the whole time we were there.

Can you get over how awkwardly I am holding her right here? I look like Voldemort would, if he were to hold a small child for a picture (HP7part2 joke!).

My Grandma, a couple aunts, an uncle, and some cousins after their trip down the river.

We went for a hike later that day, when the wind got a handle on its dramatic self.

Here are the kids with my mom (who saved the day by going back to our house for closed toed shoes for O).

I was not optimistic about Olivia’s ability to hike. Sister is the biggest walking wuss I’ve ever met in my entire life. She cries after climbing up a couple stairs sometimes, I’m not even kidding. We had a serious discussion before we embarked about how I wasn’t going to hold her, she would have to walk, and she’d ENJOY IT, OK??

Michelle, my dad, and Thomas. Thomas is the one in the sling, to clarify. (you’re welcome.)

I was so impressed with Olivia! We walked for a really long time. Bugs were gnawing on us, the sun was battering us, and the trail was really overgrown and uneven, but she hiked on her own little legs like a champ.

She asked to be held, right at the very end, so I picked her up for maybe three minutes, then insisted she continue the rest of the way. I felt a little twinge of guilt when I saw the blister on the back of her heel. She was so proud of that blister. A battle wound!

I wouldn’t blame you if you thought he was the cutest.

My family minus Matt, who went home because he tossed his tacos at least three times. I think I just made that phrase up, but I’m trying to tell you he was throwing up everywhere. I maybe threatened Olivia’s dessert to get that smile from her.

The incomplete (meaning a zillion people couldn’t come this year) group shot of all who could make it:

Here are some of us the morning we had to leave.

I’ve suddenly become aware that this stance does nothing for me.

See you again in 2013, family! I can’t wait.

Some things and also some stuff.

2011-07-23T22:54:00.001-06:00

- Out of desperation and boredom, I picked up Breaking Dawn for the second (maybe third?) time. The movie is coming out soon-ish, might as well brush up, yes? YOU GUYS. Will someone please tell me how the h they are going to make this book into a passably decent movie? TELL ME! I love the series and everything, you probably do too, but can we all agree that this book is freaking psycho? When this book first came out, I was so excited to read it. And then, when I was reading it, I was like, “GAH! WHAT??!” and also, “Edward did not just ask Jacob to proposition Bella,” and also, “WHWLAKSJLFJ!! The drinking of the blood! And the teeth baby! And the feathers!” Even though I secretly like the feathers part. Anyway, this book. I mean, really. Oh man, I am going to be wincing and giggling through all the serious parts, I just know it. Even more than I did with the first three. Also? I am going to love it. Somebody commit to go with me to a midnight showing, ok?

- I need some new reading material, STAT. (see above) I feel like I’ve read all the big series and popular books. If you have read something super spectacular lately, please share. For the sake of my brains! (the mere fact that I almost typed ‘brians!’ oughta convey the seriousness of the peril faced by my brains.)

- Tomorrow marks the first day of our gigantic family reunion with my mom’s family. So excited! You have no idea how desperately I’ve needed a short break from real life. I’m sure I will have a couple hundred pictures to share, so get some good rest these next few nights so your little peepers will be prepared for the onslaught.

- I was reaching out to throw away Olivia’s old toothbrush (which magically decided to un-lost itself once I finally gave in and bought her a new one), but I was stopped by Olivia’s shout of, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I am saving that toothbrush for my little stister!!!!!” No little stisters are imminent, obviously, but when one is! She will have a frayed, scratched off Elmo toothbrush waiting for her. And can we all agree that ‘stister’ is the best pronunciation of ‘sister’? Yes. We can.

On quandaries.

2011-07-20T01:32:00.001-06:00

Olivia gained an “and a half” to her 3 years a couple weeks back. Three and a half. I don’t know if it’s the tumultuous state of her current life or some growing pains associated with her specific age, probably a bit of both, but this age has presented some significant challenges for us.

When she is happy, she is VERY happy, cute, and hilariously perceptive (like that time after she listened to my brother Cameron ramble on about who-knows-what [as he is wont to do, you know this if you’ve met him even once], she sighed to herself, then said, “You say weird things, Cameron.” we’re still quoting it to him every chance we get. there are ample chances. ILY, cameron!).

When she is mad/grouchy/frustrated/tired/hungry, things get ugly.

Even when she isn’t any of those things, I still find myself asking her to speak kindly, ask me nicely, or please don’t yell at me, then I’m shipping her off to time out when she’s feeling really defiant. I feel like I am wasting my vocal chords. I feel like I spend half my day with my hands on my hips and my eyebrows raised, waiting for a ‘please’ or at least something better than, ‘GIIIIVEEE MEEE THAATTT RIGHT. NOW.!!!!!!!!!!*&^$*()&^$#!!!!’. I feel like I spend three quarters of my interactions with Olivia trying to correct all these little things, and isn’t that sad?

But aren’t I morally obligated to, like, do something about all that? It is a quandary, is what I’m telling you.

(Likewise confusing: I have had three, yes three!, dreams about Jimmer Fredette. He is always trying to date me! And I’m like, “I’m sorry, guy. My life is way too complicated for any of this nonsense. You’ve got to leave me alone, I’m not interested!” and then he is always trying to kiss me, and I keep ending up dodging him at parties and running out of grocery stores. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN???)

So. Now you know that parenting is kind of difficult and confusing sometimes (as is trying to escape a determined-to-date-and-kiss-you Jimmer Fredette).

I keep forgetting to charge my camera battery. So here are a billion phone pics, instead.

Olivia discovered these old stencils hiding in one of my mom’s drawers recently. She loves the stupid things. And I love the additions she makes to them. Please note, of her own volition and will, she drew two surprised faces, a happy face, and, my personal favorite, a sleeping face for her suns. AND they’re all holding hands. I love this picture so much.

front

I took my Chemistry final last Saturday. My teacher told us we could write anything we could fit on an index card to take into the test with us since we learned approximately 18 thousand formulas. I have never written so tiny. Would you believe that I ran out of things to write, so I just started writing random sentences of things I already knew I knew (makes sense?) just to fill up the rest of the space?

back

I just discovered how I did, by the way. A 215 out of 220. YES. Another 4.0 semester, and how. (I do have 2 more classes still in progress, but they are really easy, and if I can’t get A’s in them, I might poke my eyes out.)

The other day Olivia asked for a cup of water while we were playing outside. I got it for her, then she jumped onto this rock in the sunshine and declared herself “growin’ like a plant!” (sunshine+water, get it?) Love her.

Olivia was super nice to let Rusty borrow her sparkly, pink, heart-shaped glasses on a sunny day. Then they crawled under a table (on which the deflated pool was resting) and told us they needed some shade.

She was adamant that her rubber ducky should also be within her carseat straps. We take safety seriously around these parts.

Frozen yogurt on her nose, and around her mouth, and on her cheeks. She is a pretty baby, despite.

She refused, REFUSED, to wear shorts yesterday. Oh, how she hated every pair of shorts in her wardrobe! So she got herself a fancy skirt and looked like a little hippie love child for the rest of the day because both her tank and her skirt were enormous (the curse of 4T!). I kind of loved it.

Playing in the mountains.

I know that Utah has this reputation of being not that cool and everything? But I love it here so much. I love the mountains, the summer thunderstorms, the optimistic spring, the crisp autumn, and about half of winter. And about a million other things, but it’d get pretty annoying if I tried to name them all. I love Utah and I don’t care who knows it!

Nobody let summer end, ok?

2011-07-16T23:14:00.001-06:00

Mr. Russell H. Coy had his 3rd birthday last week.

We attended his fab birthday party because we love yummy food and games and pinatas and, most especially, because we love that little Russy-bus.

(and I’m not really certain of the origins of that nickname, but there you have it.)

He loves presents!

I toted Thomas about like he was my trophy baby.

Let’s be happy because this picture makes it look like I’m wearing a floral jumper, which could possibly be floor length, and that is AWESOME.

There were lots of fun games planned. Here are the three year olds participating in the egg walk:

They were super excited, obviously. Her shirt isn’t really a dress, there are shorts under there! But remember when I bought everything in 4T? Don’t be mad at my camera, Mickey is actually blurry like that in real life.

Turns out this was Olivia’s best performance of the night. I bet the people around us thought she’d been training for this event for at least 15 years. Cool as a cucumber and steady as a horse. Or something. In her excitement at winning, she threw her egg to the ground, smashed it, then scooped a little bite of it into her mouth with her spoon while I started screaming, “NOOOOOOOOOO!” in slow motion. It’s making me gag just thinking about it. But she’s still alive right now, so I’m assuming she’ll survive.

She also ate approximately 12 suckers.

Hey! Remember Thursday night? Remember how we attended the midnight-thirty showing of Harry Potter 7part2??

We approve of Harry Potter.

But, really, I was just trying to play it cool, because this is how I actually felt about it:

Yep, creepy and pointy chinned for Harry Potter! HOORAY! And Alisha! I’m so glad she made it into the pic.

And then remember how my camera took this terribly blurry picture and then we got photo-bombed and then I decided to post it anyway because it’s the only one I got of the 5 of us because my battery was dying?

Me too.

Can we talk about HP, for just a sec? It was really great. But I definitely read the book a couple weeks before and I have a hard time dealing with the kind of huge plot changes. I felt like they slaughtered my two favorite parts of the book! Exclamation points!!! So anyway, if you haven’t read the books and you’ve only seen the movies? Read the books, for crying out loud. But also, I loved it. And I think Alan Rickman is the best ever. And it was worth being up until 4 a.m. the day before my chemistry final. Seriously.

I cannot think of a title to adequately express my horror.

2011-07-08T00:31:00.001-06:00

It is pretty much an inevitability that your child will some day do or say something publicly that will make you want to crawl into the nearest hole, writhe in agony a bit, then die, inch by inch, the harrowing death that you deserve for allowing your child to remain ignorant long enough to have said or done something so irreversibly, horrifyingly mortifying.

I think that was the longest sentence I’ve ever typed.

But seriously.

We were playing at the park, Tuesday, the two of us. She wanted to swing, so I plopped her into one, and back and forth she went. Soon, a little family arrived in their car. The little boy noticed Olivia swinging and immediately asked to be put in one directly next to her. His mother came over, just a couple feet from me, and began to swing her child.

Olivia, in her childish curiosity, glanced at the mother, then asked me, full volume, “Why is she so big?”

Olivia has seen heavier people in her life, obviously. She was just curious, not malicious; she had no clue that in our grown-up society, social mores clearly prohibit this type of question (with good reason!!!!). And even though she said it in the exact tone that she might have used for, “Why is that dog brown?”, her words were hurtful.

This would be the point where I frantically searched for any convenient caves to huddle up in.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt like apologizing would just force the woman to publicly acknowledge that Olivia’s words were painful (and I’m sure they were). With my stomach in my throat, I quickly tried to change the subject, “Hey! Do you want to do the slides? I’ll be an alligator that tries to chomp you up!” But Olivia, never one to be thwarted, repeated, “But why is she so big?”

I really thought I might expire on the spot.

I plucked her out of her swing with a, “Come on! I’m going to eat you up if you don’t get onto the playground!” And Olivia was successfully diverted. Mere minutes later (they’d only just arrived), the mother packed up and left the park. I don’t know for certain, but I’m pretty sure their departure was Olivia’s-mouth related.

At this point, I pulled Olivia aside and we had a conversation about how people come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. How none of that really matters- what’s on the inside matters. How we should love the people around us, no matter what. And how sometimes, asking about why people are different than us, right in front of them, isn’t very polite because it can make them feel bad.

(Although I have mixed feelings about that last sentence. I want her to feel like she can ask me questions. I don’t want her to get a sense of taboo surrounding differences in others, and I certainly want her forming opinions from the answers I can give her, rather than seeking information from her peers as she grows up. You see? It’s such a muddled, confusing situation!)

I wish I could have handled the situation better- with more tact. I was just so horrified about the words coming out of her mouth that I wasn’t thinking clearly.

If your child’s moment of “NO, WORLD, MY MOTHER HAS NOT TAUGHT ME BETTER!!!” hasn’t happened yet? Rest assured, it’s coming. (and probably even if you have taught them better.) I’m sure this was just my first.

I cannot get that Katy Perry song out of my head.

2011-07-05T00:15:00.001-06:00

I’m not sure who keeps allowing time to pass this quickly, but seriously. I’d like a word with this person. July?? We’re already seven months in, with only five to go? (I maybe just counted that on my fingers.)

There’s lots to love about July, however prematurely it seems to show up. I love how the nighttime air is punctuated with the sudden POP! of fireworks for the entire month (in Utah, fireworks are legal the majority of the July). Even as I sit here, I can hear them out there just blasting away. It’s warm, and glorious, and water park-y.

Here’s Olivia basking in the summer sun at Seven Peaks:

She isn’t really sleeping, just protecting her eyeballs.

Unfortunately, the Fourth of July hit me in a way that Father’s Day and my birthday didn’t, as far as my life situation goes. I had an especially hard time dealing with the splintered pieces of my family as I attended barbeques and firework celebrations. I think it was the FAMILY HOLIDAY!!!! atmosphere. I think it was the joy on Olivia’s face at everything; something I’d usually share had to be unwillingly hoarded to myself. It’s the type of thing you want to share with someone who had an equal donation of DNA in that magnificent little being. But I kept it for myself- because I had no choice.

I am struggling. And I am tired. But I think it’s ok to admit that.

Emily and I took little O to watch the Stadium of Fie-yer (fire)(that’s just the way they pronounce it in the song they play every year before the fireworks go off. STAY-dium of Fie-YER!) fireworks on Saturday. Don’t ask me why they did it on the 2nd of July. Whatever. Anyway, we took Olivia even though it would mean she’d have to stay up until 11 pm, and even though we had no idea if we’d find a spot to park, and even though we had no clue if there’d be any good places to sit, and EVEN THOUGH! we knew we’d probably be stuck in traffic until the wee hours of the night coming home.

You guys, a Fourth of July Miracle occurred. I am pretty close to positive that our Founding Fathers looked down on Emily and I and exclaimed, “These poor, beleaguered maidens need our assistance, straightaway!” and Thomas Jefferson was like, “I’m on it!” Because we magically found a super close parking spot, even though we left only 20 minutes before the fireworks were to start. And then we instantly found a perfect, grassy hillside, directly facing the stadium on which to lay our blankets. And then Olivia was so happy and excited that she was a perfect angel, despite being awake a zillion hours past her bedtime. And then the fireworks started and she snuggled up to me and “oooh”ed and “awww”ed and “these firewuhks are BEAUTIFUL!”ed the whole time! AND THEN, when the lovely show was over, we skedaddled right back to our car and made it home in 10 minutes flat, leaving a whole trail of stalled traffic in our wake. Plus, when we got home, Olivia peaced out into sleep immediately, without making a peep. PLUS, PLUS, she was really great the entire next day at church, at home, at play.

I am pretty thankful that, despite this difficult, I-hate-it-so-much situation, things can still be beautiful. You know?

I gave her some tortilla chips to keep her pacified while we waited for the show to start:

And then I beamed at her while my nails went around blinding people.

I’ll be honest, I totally spaced it on getting Olivia a patriotic outfit. In fact, I was tearing through her closet today, shrieking, “She must have SOMETHING that’s red!” But she really doesn’t. But then Michelle dropped the ball, too, so I felt not that bad about it anymore.

Here are the kiddos in their (not very patriotic, but they’re cute, so who cares?) Fourth of July outfits:

My camera and I are fighting because it made this picture blurry. Of all pictures, seriously, camera.

Today was a big day because it was the first time this year that all six of my siblings were together at the same time:

We are all so old now! Here’s, left-to-right,: Cameron, Alisha, Michelle, me, Emily, and Matt.

Our birth order (in case you’re interested to know): Alisha, Michelle, me, Cameron, Emily, Matt.

And then we did this:

Awesome.

And then we got photo-bombed by Matthew. I win for tan-ness. Yesss.

Excited for fireworks.

Hoorah! We love America!!!!!!

Sometimes I start typing, then realize I’ve just written, like, an entire page worth of pointless, inane information. Which I guess is what just happened with this post title, also.

2011-06-26T23:00:00.001-06:00

-There is something so completely, inherently WRONG about having a cold when it’s 90 degrees outside. First Olivia had it. I carried this false sense of security; I almost never catch her illnesses. Even despite sharing food and spoons, straws and continual daily exposure, I never get sick too. Except when I do. Like this time. It’s the kind of cold that has you shaking your fists toward the heavens while you lay in bed at night, gasping for air because your nostrils have closed shop with a, “Sorry for the inconvenience! We’ll be back in a maddeningly indeterminate amount of time!” sign. Meanwhile, I will sit here with eyes streaming, snuffling loudly to the assured annoyance of every person around me.

- Due to our newest living circumstances, Olivia and I have been sharing a bedroom. Which is, like, my worst nightmare. But it’s been ok so far because she hasn’t realized I’m there yet. We have a tall dresser up against her bed which blocks her view of mine, so as far as she’s concerned, I just magically appear every morning when she starts calling for me (because, even though she can, she will never leave her bed by herself). There have been plenty of close calls, like that time when I was reading in my bed with a flashlight (AH! It’s like I’m 10 again!). She woke up, crawled down her bed to peer at me, and said, “Well, I want a flashlight.” So I just switched mine off real quick and didn’t say anything. After a while, she kind of shrugged, crawled back into her covers and fell asleep.

- The best part about this whole arrangement is being privy to her sleep talking. Basically, Olivia talks alllllllllllll day long, then falls asleep and talks alllllllllllllll night long, too. The other night she began crying hysterically. I began to get concerned until she muttered, “Ahhhh, it’s a fairy trap!” and continued to sob. Plus! Every morning when she wakes up, she will hang out and talk, sing, and laugh for a hour or so before she wants to get out of bed. Seriously, I’ve tried getting her before she is finished and received a, “HEY! I didn’t call for you! No! I’m not ready yet!!” for my trouble. So I sit and chuckle to myself while she bursts into songs from Tangled and cracks up at her own stories. “Wow! I just had a dream about a baby bird! And I had to feed it some worms! And then I saw ants!! Ahhhh hahahahahaha! They were so liiiiittle and that bird’s mommy was there, too! Ahhhh hahahaha!”

- I am reading the last Harry Potter for maybe the sixth time. I have to prepare for the movie, you see. And it’s not like I have to tell you, because you would already assume this is so, but let me just tell you anyway, because what if you’ve only just starting reading here and heretofore have not become aware that I love these types of things desperately: I’ve had my tickets for a midnight showing of Deathly Hallows Part Two for ages by now. And it doesn’t even come out until July 14! If, for whatever random reason, I die before that date? I’m going to be pretty pissed.

- I took Olivia to a new waterpark this week. Our regular one was crawling with a RIDICULOUS amount of people, plus I couldn’t find anywhere to park, so we scratched that one and found a new one.

It was the cutest. The entire thing was made for little ones. We both loved it. Except I couldn’t figure out why I was basically the only mom there that didn’t have the greatest body ever of all time? Were we there on Best Mom-Bodies Ever Day? Is it because we were more northward? Perhaps the closer you get to SLC, the hotter the moms are?? Conundrum.

Oh! Olivia had her weekly night’s stay with her dad, so Emily and I decided to hit the town. And by hit the town, I mean, go to Café Rio and Target! (and I’m secretly impressed with my blogging software for automatically putting the accent over the ‘e’ in café. Ah! It just did it again! Let’s try another one. Paper mache. Huh, well, at least café works!)

After we filled our bellies to their fullest capacity, we hit up Target. We skulked about in the nail polish aisle for ages. I love nail polish with my whole heart, might, mind, and soul. We were choosing colors at a rapid pace, when suddenly I realized that every color we’d chosen matched Emily’s super awesome tie dyed shirt. Behold:

I am suspicious that hours worth of exposure to the colors on her shirt were what motivated the neon-ly bright colors we ultimately chose. Hypnotism by shirts is real, people. I should know.

And a terrible phone picture of the two of us. I should warn you- every picture in this post is a terrible phone picture. You see, I’ve lost my camera charger. Well, not so much lost, but misplaced, definitely. My real camera battery has died and I’ve lacked sufficient motivation to search for its charger. So: phone pictures. My apologies.

There is a long-standing rule at my parents’ house that states: “In the circumstance that one has placed restaurant food into the refrigerator, one must mark one’s food with one’s name, for in the day that one neglects to so mark it, one’s delectable leftovers will surely disappear.” At least I think that’s what it said. There might have been a few less ‘one’s involved.

I had to follow the rules, you know. And I added all those ‘ha ha ha’s because I knew it would make my dad laugh. Which it totally did.

Also! Here is a cute picture of Olivia with her cherry dipped cone:

Olivia, continuing her penchant for finding enchantment in the most random of items, has found an unlikely friend in this stuffed sting ray. When I asked her to take this picture she said, “WAIT! I have to hold him up so you can see his smile!” Hence, his creepy mouth in the above picture.

Ok, one last thing, I promise! Tonight O and Rusty got soaking wet and had to be put in t-shirts while their clothes dried.

I guess I oughta thank you if you made it through this post in its entirety. One day I’ll start breaking these babies up into bite-sized chunks. But, knowing myself, that will probably never happen.

An exercise in RANDOM.

2011-06-22T00:48:00.001-06:00

How does one begin such a post as this? After one has written such a post as the last one?

Perhaps one should simply start with this: Thank you. No, but seriously, thank you. I have received more emails, phone calls, facebook messages, and really kind blog comments in the last few days than I’ve known what to do with. And I appreciate every single one. I love the whole world!

There have been plenty of perks to my new living situation (to supplement to the veritable mountain range of downsides). People, I love my family. I just LOVE THESE PEOPLE. Suddenly I am being mothered again- it is a kind of weirdly fantastic, circular feeling to be mothered by my mother whilst I do my own mothering. Homemade oatmeal in the mornings? Nutritious dinners cooked every night! A small complaint of a sore throat and suddenly tablets of vitamin C (the yummy chewable kind!) magically appear right next to me. So, while daydreams of my own kitchen, food, car, and HOME, may run rampant, our circumstances are not so terrible.

My sister Emily and I took the little one out for snow cones recently. It has been a kind of pathetic summer, so far. Here we are in the middle of June getting snow cones- and long pants and jackets are necessary! I was this close to writing an Official Letter of Complaint, but I just saw the forecast predicting 90’s for Thursday. I will accept that as an appropriate apology, Weather. (but, so help me, if you pull any more of this funny business… CONSEQUENCES!)

Oh, but she is the cutest.

And speaking of the cutest:

Right?

Here’s the part where I post more pictures of my sister’s baby than my own actual progeny.

My mom with Thomas. And for some reason I can never say his name normally. Even as I typed that, I said it, “toe-mahs” is my head. He is unimpressed with her adulation. His face is like, “Eh. I am still trying to recover from the haircut my mom gave me when she realized my hair was falling out at an alarming rate. It looks much better this way, yes, but I kind of liked my lone sideburn amongst the glorious patch of bald all around it. It had personality!”

I think he looks a lot like Michelle when she was a baby. You see? Note: their ears, their eyes, their mouth shape. And don’t give me any attitude about how the picture is too small and grainy to adequately assess such things.

I finagled my family members into a group shot to commemorate our Father’s Day celebration. My two brothers were either unwilling or not present, even after I shouted something about MAKING MEMORIES WITH YOUR FAMILY!!! I still couldn’t procure the results I desired. So. No brothers included in this photo, is what I’m trying to say.

Alisha, me, Dad, Mom, Emily, Michelle. Aren’t my hand-holding parents the cutest?

I’ve been scanning some old family photos for an upcoming facebook album (when I get around to it), and I can’t resist posting one here for comparison purposes:

The face that bow-tied Cameron is making is my favorite. And try not to notice how much baby Matthew resembles Darth Vader when he takes his helmet/mask thingy off. I don’t even feel bad for saying that because he became the most darling little toddler of all time. You will see, fellow facebook friends.

What’s that you say? More pictures of Thomas? Well, I’d hate to disappoint you!

In case there was any doubt- those are my hands, and yes, I am his favorite, and yes, we are bonding 24/7 whenever he’s with me.

O.Scout and Rusty today. Rusty insisted on the life jacket. Safety first! And they are my favorite. (besides all my other favorites.)

The end.

I was born!

2011-06-17T00:34:00.001-06:00

Today I am 25. I feel like I suddenly seem a little more mature, trustworthy, responsible, and car-rentable. I feel a little less embarrassingly young to have a child, but a little more embarrassingly old to still be hanging around a university. But I actually like the sound of 25. 25! People will ask me questions and then consider, “Well, she is 25. That’s old enough to have a real person opinion about things. I will take her word for it in just the way I wouldn’t if she were only 24!” You see? This is a good thing! And if you ask Olivia, she’ll opine that I can’t possibly be a day over 4, so I am seemingly young while simultaneously being respectably old. This is perfect. Welcome, 25!

Cara and I went on a birthday date (we are casually dating, it isn’t serious) today. She bought me sushi:

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is tempura shrimp topped with spicy-super-tasty sauce placed lovingly atop a tuna and cucumber roll and a glorious vegas roll. Sure, they are both a little deep-fried. Just the way I like them.

And the obligatory photo op:

I recognize I look twice Cara’s size. But that is the great thing about being 25! What does a 25 year old care about looking like a circus tent?? 25 year olds are notoriously self-confident!

I also had a small shopping spree. Said shopping spree might have actually made it to a medium-sized spree, but I made the unfortunate choice of allowing a certain 3 year old to tag along. 3 year olds, as we know, are TERRIBLE SHOPPERS. And even, REALLY IMPATIENT, UNCARING ABOUT A LOVING MOTHER’S SPECIAL DAY OF BIRTH, GET-ME-OUT-OF-THIS-STORE-SOMEBODY-BUY-ME-A-SUCKER!!!!! shoppers.

Speaking of 3 year olds:

They are pretty awesome surrogate keyboard players for stuffed bears.

They are honestly spectacular at refusing to be in pictures with their extremely patient, loving, super awesome mothers.

And scaling brick walls tends to be one of their favorite activities.

Victory!

A small moment of seriousness: I have endlessly vacillated about whether I should even discuss this issue on my little blog. But I hate having to tiptoe around things to write anything here, so I’ve decided to speak as freely as I can while still being sensitive to others involved. Am I being cryptic enough to make you crazy?

My life is mess. A great big jumbled mess. If my life were a puzzle? It’d be the kind that is 24,000 pieces, plus it’d make you do the Beijing skyline in 3D, and it’d have a motorized part that you’d have to build, but all the instructions would be in Arabic.

Currently, Olivia and I are living with my parents. We have been dealing with some serious, difficult, deal-breaking issues in our marriage for almost 5 years. These problems are not new. My decision to move was not rash or made in a fit of emotion. Nothing is decided. Nothing is permanent, but things are pretty sincerely challenging. The kind of challenging that calls for an introspective, heart-wrenching separation.

Obviously living with my parents on my 25th birthday with Fathers’ Day right around the corner is less than ideal. It’s sad and it sucks in all capital letters, bolded, underlined, and in font size one million.

But. I feel very strongly that it’s right- for right now.

Some things I know:

1. God loves me. You guys, there’s just no getting around it. I pester and haggle and beg and plead and badger Him times infinity and He still listens. And HELPS. And comforts me when faint, and all those things. And goodness golly, am I thankful.

2. If I continue to do the things that I know are right, I will be fine. More than fine, I will be HAPPY. I can’t tell you what a blessing this is to know. No matter where this crazy, winding, unpredictable path of life takes me, I can be happy. That’s big! And awesome! And, in times like these, really reassuring. (However, this does not mean I’ll be exempt from hardships, obviously.)

3. If people are nice to me, I will most likely begin to uncontrollably sob and bathe their clothes in my tears. I can’t help it! It’s been very embarrassing! You know who you are. And, um. Sorry about all that. I can handle regular, every day conversations really easily, but if you smile, maybe pat my shoulder, look deep in my eyes, and ask some sort of soul-searching question like, “No, really, how ARE you???” Well then, you asked for it.

4. I think I’ve just begun to list random things, so let me wrap this up and try to answer all your questions in one fell swoop: We are ok. We will be ok. Olivia is handling it pretty well (there are good days and bad days for both of us). I am handling it pretty well. I don’t know what will happen, but I’ll let you know when we figure it out. And, again, we’re ok.

5. I just had a moment of horror and indecision. Should I post this? Should I erase it? I’m posting it. Be nice to me? But not too nice. (see #3)