Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Obligatory First Day of School Post...


Alternatively known as "Only 114 More Days until Christmas Vacation..."

Wow, where did summer go? I have fun pictures of Lucy's birthday, Ruthie's birthday, Meredith's birthday, camping at Beaver, camping at Palisades, the Planetarium, the Living Planet Aquarium, the Pioneer Park farmer's market, the Manti Pageant, the fountain at Gateway, Seven Peaks, the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, Temple Square, sewing camp, quilt camp, and the 4-H fashion show, but since it makes me tired just writing all of that down, I will probably not post them just now. Also, I think I just realized where summer went...

Here are Meredith and Ruthie on the first day of Fifth grade and Third Grade. Aren't they cute? They're getting so big. I discovered this year that while taking a new kindergartener to school is only mildly emotional, dropping a kid off at the middle school to start fifth grade turns me into a weepy mess for the rest of the day. Who knew?
Meredith is excited to be in Mrs. Henrie's class this year, and to have a locker! She is already busy decorating it, and filling it with gum, which is allowed at middle school. Ruthie has been enjoying Mrs. Bliss' pirate themed classroom. She was way excited to have her first classroom job be a fish feeder. She is the animal kid, after all.

And of course, the next day was Isaac's big kindergarten debut!
Since we don't do preschool, this was Isaac's first school experience. He was more excited than I think I've ever seen anyone for anything else in my life. His teacher is Mrs. Day (a.k.a. "the pretty blond lady who goes to our Primary.") He is thrilled with every little thing they do at school. I even got a word for word account of the bathroom rules and procedures, including appropriate volume levels for speaking in the restroom. He was a little nervous to find his classroom the second day of school after getting off the bus, so he just asked the principal to take him there. Never let it be said that he lacks problem solving skills.

This is my kids walking to the bus on Friday. It was the first day they rode the bus to school, and I thought it was so cute that they held hands on the way. When Isaac got home (he gets out earliest on Friday) I asked him if he sat with his friend Ethan who also rides his bus. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No. I sat with Meredith and Ruthie, of course." I love that they look out for each other.
The other awesome thing about this year is our bus time! The bus gets to our stop just before 7:30. That is such an improvement! Since Meredith starts school at 7:55, I would have to leave less than ten minutes later to drive them to school anyway. So we are officially back to being bus riders. (I'm sure I can find a good way to re-appropriate the money we were spending on gas last year driving to school every day.) They also get home earlier. In fact, when Mer and Ruth got home after school the first day, and I asked them how the first day of school was, they both said, "Awesome! Our bus ride is so short!" They got home nearly half an hour earlier than last year. I'm really happy about the whole thing.
And not to forget Lucy, here's my lonely daytime buddy. She does not like having everybody go to school. In fact, she was really mad when we dropped Isaac off at school that I wouldn't let her hang up the backpack she had insisted on bringing and leave her there with him. So far, for the two days we've been home alone in the morning, she has just followed me around and said, "Mama, I'm hungry!" every thirty seconds. I think the child consumes her body weight in food each day. She would eat an entire box of GoGurts if allowed, and frequently demands "cereal and milk" four or five times a day. If her growth spurt continues, I'm going to have to get a job to buy food.
This picture also explains why I can never see out of my sunglasses... those look like GoGurt fingerprints to me....

Monday, May 17, 2010

Need help...

I am tired of taking crappy pictures. I have decided to take some classes. Anybody taken a good one? I know I'll need a photoshop class as well. Post processing can fix a host of evils. So, if anyone has any ideas for me, please shoot them my way. (Although, I'm not actually sure if anyone reads this or not- I might be talking to myself. Not that that is anything out of the ordinary for me... talking to myself is sort of a way of life.... In fact, even when I talk to my kids, I usually feel like I'm talking to myself...)

Also, Lucy is such an advanced child that she has officially hit the terrible twos a full two weeks before her second birthday. Isn't it nice when your children are ahead of schedule? So far today, she has screamed at me and knocked a cupcake out of my hand (how dare I try to feed her a cupcake that SHE asked for?), thrown a bowl of goldfish crackers I sat out for her, and laid down on the floor for a full scale tantrum because I offered her juice (which she had also asked for, by the way.) Anybody want a soon-to-be two year old for a few weeks? (Months, maybe?)

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Injury update...


Here she is on day three after the injury. Every morning when she wakes up she runs to the mirror, checks herself out, points to her eye and says, "Lucy purple eye! Lucy pretty!" If you look carefully, you can see that there is even a spot of purple on her upper eyelid. I feel bad about the whole thing, but honestly, Lucy is kind of digging the attention she gets everywhere she goes. What a kid!

Monday, May 3, 2010

I hardly know where to begin...

I hate it when I let things lapse for so long that I don't know where to catch up. I usually don't even try (anybody notice the conspicuous absence of any mention of the Christmas/ New Year holiday season?) But, there are a few things I wanted to write about, and since I'm too tired to go to sleep, I'll do it now.

First, Easter finery. I have lots of other Easter pictures, but I just wanted to show you how cute my kids can look. Especially those of you who have seen them running around town in holey jeans, worn out leotards, or outfits that mix pink, red, and lavender. See... cute, right? (I'm not sure why Lucy looks grouchy- possibly the fact that I had her high centered on a stump...)
Also, I should mention my favorite boy in the whole world (with the possible exception of Zane) had a birthday. My little Isaac is five. Look out, kindergarten! Here he comes!

In the great grand family tradition we have started of each parent taking each child on a one-on-one birthday date, Isaac spent the afternoon and evening of his birthday playing video games on the big screen at Grandma's with his dad. Isaac and I have yet to go on our birthday date- the last month and a half of the school year is sort of jam packed. Isaac did say in his prayer last week, "And please help Mom to remember that we really do need to go bowling. Help her see that tomorrow would be a perfect day for bowling, and also for eating pizza. Because she really did promise that we could go bowling for my birthday date." So, yes, I'm feeling super guilty about making him wait so long, but hopefully after the dance review is over tomorrow, my schedule will free up a little bit.

The next big family event? The Kentucky Derby, of course. I told the kids we would be having a derby party and Isaac started jumping up and down in the air and screaming in excitement. Just as I was patting myself on the back for having a great idea, he asked if we would be crashing all three of our cars together. Unfortunately, he was less excited about watching horses run on television, and he ultimately spent the day shoveling at mud fort with Zane (in some kind of well meaning although arguably misguided service project...)

But the girls and I? We were all about the derby. Which we didn't even pay a whole lot of attention to. Because really, the Kentucky Derby is WAY less about the horses and WAY more about the hats. See?

And I would be extremely remiss if I didn't mention the mint juleps. We made really truly (sort of, because we didn't use any alcohol) mint juleps, with real mint leaves and fresh squeezed lemon juice and everything. They were quite delightful. We must make them again before next year. And possibly find more occasions on which to wear hats... Lucy just wears hers every day, proudly announcing that it's her "berby" hat.

We finally got to meet baby Makenna this week, too. She's a doll, just as we expected. It's been fun to have Meredith and Ruth be big enough to hold her. They loved her to pieces.


And finally, here's Lucy as she normally looks (if slightly more formal...)
And here's Lucy as she looks today...
You like the black eye? That's what happens when little girls think they're big enough to run with the big boy (cousins.) Lucy had a lovely collision with a toy truck today while playing. She's very good natured about the whole thing. Most times that I ask her if her eye hurts, she points to the wrong eye. But she looks pretty tough. Nobody is going to mess with her at nursery this Sunday!

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Did you know...

That if you complain about wind, sometimes the universe sends you rain and snow? But ha, ha! I get the last laugh. Because guess what? I love rain. And I even like snow better than wind. Take that, universe! I win!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

I'm tired of wind.

Why can't we just go back here? It was warm. We were happy. There was no mountain of laundry waiting to be put away. Life was easier here. Did I mention the palm trees and seagulls? I love palm trees and seagulls. We have seagulls here, I guess. But Utah seagulls are probably the rejects of the bird world who are too stupid to realize they could move to somewhere with palm trees.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Dirty, dirty work...



I think everyone gets that when they have kids, there will be messes to clean up. I'm pretty sure I didn't realize what a constant process this would be. If I was smarter, I'd have bought stock in every wet wipe company before Meredith was ever born. I don't know where they find all the dirt. Ruthie went to play with a friend today, and they spent a good long while throwing dirt in the air and letting it fall on themselves. She came home coated in a layer of black dust, happy and looking very appropriately child-like for a warm spring afternoon. You'd never catch grownups throwing dirt in the air just to see it fall.
Sometimes it is a mess inflicted on purpose. Lucy has had a few struggles with thrush in her mouth. We can't use the typical medicine to treat it, since anyone who knows anything about my kids knows that medicine = throwing up at our house. (Thanks, Grandpa Styler, for the gag reflexes you passed on, by the way!) So we use the old school method of swabbing gentian violet on her tongue. It is super effective, usually working within the first day, but boy, does that stuff ever stain. And Lucy hates it. She got a drop of purple on her fist the day of this picture where she drooled on it. And for days, she would come up and show us her hand and say, "Uh oh! Purple!" She will still randomly point to her mouth and announce, "All done, purple!"

These next pictures were taken half way to California. Lucy had been fussing and tired of being in her carseat, so against my better judgment (which I'm beginning to doubt even exists) I gave her one of those juice filled fruit snacks. She seemed to really like it, and was very quiet for a minute, so I gave her another, and then another. It all seemed to be going okay, until we stopped to stretch our legs, and found two stuck to her carseat, and another firmly entrenched in her hair.

I wish the pictures showed the extent of the disaster a little better, because I've never seen anything stuck so tight in my life. In the picture below you can see how much hair came out with the candy. (Notice the wetwipes in the pictures- it took five or six to even loosen the goo... if only I was a shareholder...)

And since the kids are out of school tomorrow, I'm sure they're already thinking about what mess to make next. Luckily, it's been warm enough to kick everyone outside...
This picture is how Isaac looked in March of 2007. He's such a funny kid. Sunday afternoon, we were over at Grandma and Grandpa Drapers. Grandpa stopped on his way into the house and shoveled some dirt into the trench around the foundation of the addition they are building on their house. Isaac said, "I'm really good at doing that. Want me to help ya?" Grandpa handed him the shovel and said, "Sure, just throw it right in that hole." Isaac walked over to the edge, chucked the shovel into the trench, and ran off to play. That'll teach us to be a little more specific in our instructions!


Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

How lucky am I? I love these (messy, loud, crazy) kids!

Thanks, Grandma, for the new St. Patrick's Day shirts, jewelry, and stick-on shamrocks!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Greetings from bilingual land...

Friday morning I was downstairs working (please feel free to change that to "wasting time on the internet, most likely shopping" in your mind...) and I heard Lucy moving around in bed on the baby monitor. I went upstairs and peeked around the door to see if she was really awake, and she sat up, gave me a huge grin, and said, "Hola!" I wasn't sure I'd heard correctly, so I said, "What?," prompting her to reply, "Hola!" I laughed and said, "Who says 'Hola?'" (fully expecting her to reply Dora, or Rosita, or some other cartoon friend.) Lucy pointed to herself, and said, "I do!" Ask a stupid question, indeed.

This morning, Zane went in to wake Isaac up for church. Isaac tends to be less than enthusiastic about the three hours of church sitting we do each week, so we always try to put a very positive spin on the whole thing for him, which proves that mothers are selfless because I tend to be less than enthusiastic about three hours of sitting as well, and I would much prefer to grump and pout my way through the morning with him. (Not that I ever do, and if Zane tells you otherwise, he is lying.) So, Zane was being all happy and rubbing his back to wake him up, and he said, "We have to go get you some breakfast because it's church day today." Isaac rolled over and groaned, and then yelled, "Foo!" (Which was really funny, because we realized that at every ball game he's ever attended, he thought the people saying "Boo!" were actually saying "Foo!") Anyway, I've decided to adopt the word "Foo!" and use it from now on.

In case you were worried, Isaac had a wonderful time at church today, because he got two turns in Primary, AND he got to help Grandpa drive home (complaining the whole way that it was taking too long and Grandpa needed to hit the gas.) Lucy did not have such a wonderful time in church because she decided that it was really fun to hurl fruit snacks (or "noot naks" as she calls them) at the back of people sitting near us. We took the bag of fruit snacks away, prompting her to throw herself on the ground and scream. Zane removed her from the room, and she slept for the last forty minutes of church. (As did I.)

We are on a super big Alice in Wonderland kick around here. Ruthie was invited by a friend to see the new movie on Friday night, so Meredith called a friend, and we went to the show. (Isaac and Lucy stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, which Isaac will always choose over going out.) I really liked the movie. Zane was so-so. I think Alice in Wonderland (and probably Lewis Carroll in general) is a lot like coconut. You either love it or you hate it. There really aren't many people in the middle. I loved both "Alices Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" as a kid, as well as the Alice in Wonderland original Disney movie. I like the weirdness of the whole thing. Anyway, now both girls are reading like crazy (we need to round up another copy of "Alice" because they don't love sharing.) It's a good thing, I think. I always like to indoctrinate my children to like what I like. How else are we going to hang out and do stuff together when they get big enough to ride in the car without being annoying?

And because it seems wrong to post a blog entry with no pictures, I give you the following, which I have entitled, "The Drapers get up well before 7:00 AM and discover that there really are sad, pathetic people chain smoking and gambling in Mesquite at this hour."

And this little gem, which doesn't have a name because we are just standing on the road in Las Vegas with some M & M's and what would you really say about that?
Last but not least, congrats to Uncle Steve and Aunt Lindsey and cousin Brinley on the arrival of baby Makenna Lyn (formerly known as "Baby Snowcone.") We are so excited for you guys, and can't wait to meet little Miss Makenna. Kiss her lots for us all!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

You'll never guess...

Want to guess where we've been? (Hint: read the sign above the cute and exhausted kids in the picture above...) Yup, we've ventured to Southern California and lived to tell the tale. We spent a day at the beach, five fabulous days in Disneyland and California Adventure, and a less thrilling day in Las Vegas. I must say, I love Disneyland. Possibly more than my children, and definitely more than most (normal) adults. I ALWAYS cry when we have to leave (even after running like crazy for five full days there.) I ALWAYS hatch desperate last minute schemes to avoid going home so that we can stay longer. (This time this included writing down the names of nice looking businesses so that I could send Zane's resume to them and try to move permanently to the area.) I LOVE California. I love the way the air feels, the smell, the proximity of the beach, and oh yeah, in case I didn't mention it, I LOVE DISNEYLAND!!!



This trip was especially fun because my girls were big enough to stay until the park closed with me. My big and little boys took Lucy home to bed, but the girls and I stayed up. Late. REALLY late.


Also thrilling, we happened to be in the park the week they re-opened Captain EO after fourteen years of being closed. As someone who has vivid memories of loving this show as a child (nearly Meredith's exact age, in fact) I may have been most looking forward to this part of the whole trip. It was just as fun as I remembered it. Not many people know this (apart from my closest friends from second through fifth grades) but there was a time when I thought Michael Jackson was the bee's knees. (My most memorable gift from this time period was a hardcover book about Michael Jackson that my dad brought me home from a trip- I even remember taking it to church.) Obviously, subsequent years of Michael Jackson being really creepy took their toll on my affection. But seeing Captain EO with my girls made me remember why I once liked him so much.
In the interest of total disclosure, I should admit that I may have made my kids go see Captain EO a few times. Like six....(or was it seven?) We might all have it memorized. Not that there is anything wrong with that, right?

It turns out Minnie stays up really late, too. I think she was on her way to Captain EO.
Lucy liked most of the rides. Except the carousel. She is TERRIFIED of carousels. Which is funny, because you can stick her on the back of a living, breathing horse, and she's fine. But even walking toward the carousel sets her off into shrieks of terror. Her favorite ride was Winnie the Pooh. We rode it about four times in a row one night while Zane took the big kids on Splash Mountain over and over. When we got off the ride the fourth time, Lucy announced, "All done Pooh! Lucy home!" But when we walked past the beginning of the line she yelled, "Again, Pooh! More!" So we rode it again.
That's the beauty of Disneyland in February. There are no lines. The picture above this is Peter Pan. Notice how there are like six people in the line? That NEVER happens. Even later in the day while we were there the line for this ride was about twenty minutes. But that was on a weekend. On a good day in the summer you can count on forty five minutes to an hour. Plus, the weather was glorious. (Especially with the contrast with the weather from home.) I really love February in California. Also, Lucy's fuzzy baby chicken hair turns into little gold ringlets in California. (Where did I put that list of nice looking businesses? I'm ready to send Zane's resumes off and start packing...)




See Isaac's cute little blue Mickey hat? Well, as far as we know, it is somewhere in the skeleton room on the Indiana Jones ride. There is a reason they say you should put your hats and glasses in the pouch. They really do blow off. Luckily, guest relations said they go through the rides at night and gather up lost articles, and they will mail it back to us. They had a form to fill out and everything. Lovely, lovely Disneyland.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Dear Olympics,

Please go away. I am tired of always seeing you on the television. I think you are incredibly boring. And, as if each event wasn't excruciating enough to watch once, you insist on replaying them over and over from every angle, possibly to attempt to lull the viewer into an actual coma. And if I wanted to hear sob stories about the pathetic life story of each athlete, and how they all grew up eating only rocks under a train trestle having to collect cow droppings to sell to fund their Olympic training, I would watch an actual Lifetime Original movie in order to avoid the annoying music and voice over.

You even screwed up the opening ceremonies this year. It was like watching the cast of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, dressed up to attend a concert by "The Cure." Creepy.

If you could manage to reschedule so that the Olympics took place every ten years and lasted for only one day, I think I could feel some kind of fondness for you. As long as two-thirds was opening ceremony, and only one third was endless circling on the ice.

Thank you,
Melissa

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Meet our new friend...



This lovely big white ball of fur is Sir Laurence Olivier. We call him Ollie. He has had a tough few weeks, including being abandoned or lost, shot three times (you can see the shaved patches of fur on his hind legs and under his belly where the stitches are healing nicely,) and finally suffering the indignity of neutering. For all that, he is a wonderful pet. We have adopted him whole-heartedly, and are waiting for him to adopt us back. He is as gentle as can be, and wags his tail when he sees us, but he is a little reserved. Our collective family egos require all dogs to run to you in raptures of joy over seeing you after any length of separation. And Ollie is not ready to do that just yet. But he is willing to endure endless brushing, petting, and mauling by the kids in a good natured way. So we're hoping he will realize we're not so bad.

Lucy is not afraid of Ollie in the slightest. She will traipse right up to him and throw herself at him for a hug. He is a wee bit taller than she is when standing. When we picked him up he weighed 75 pounds and the vet says he's still at least 20 pounds underweight. So he'll be big, which most of you who have been along on this journey to finding the perfect new dog know is an absolute requirement. (That and having a tail- because seriously, how idiotic do dogs without tails look when they try to wag them and end up just having to wiggle their fannies back and forth?) We're not sure what breed Ollie is, exactly, although he appears to be some combination of Newfoundland and Great Pyrenees. Mutts are the best.

Here's hoping he lives for awhile.

Because we've not had the best luck with pets lately. We have lost two dogs, and nine cats. Included in those numbers are Lennox, dog of the universe, whom we'd owned for six years and enjoyed for four (I don't do puppies) before he just never came home one night, and Indy, the cat we've had since before we had children. I still feel a little sick thinking about them. Our worst track record was the dog we had for about twelve hours before it's untimely demise. Or perhaps Isaac's kitten, Lucky, that we had finally nursed back to health with round the clock bottle feedings after losing all of its littermates, only for him to discover it moments after a friend ran over it in the driveway. (Isaac's final words to the kitten at his burial: "Poor Lucky. I guess you were the unluckiest of them all.")

So, here we are, finally restocked on cats, thanks to the kids getting kittens for Christmas (the lovely teen-aged type of kittens who arrived with a full knowledge of mouse hunting...) and a(nother) new dog. Wish us luck. We certainly seem to need it...

Sunday, January 17, 2010

This kid...

is apparently living a deprived life. Last night, I got home from a full day in Provo. During the day, I had purchased a bag of cotton candy (purely for self-medication after hearing the news that the new dog we had given our children the night before had met an untimely demise...is owning a dog for less than twelve hours before its time of death a record of some sort?) I ate a few bites, but as delicious as it was, I just can't eat a whole bag of cotton candy in an afternoon. (Unless it is Easter weekend, and then all bets are off, naturally.) Anyhow, when I got home with a nearly full bag of cotton candy, I decided to give Miss Lucy a piece as a treat. I handed her a lovely lavender ball of sugary goodness. She looked at it for a minute, gave it a little squeeze, rubbed it on her cheek...., and then blew her nose on it. After I quit laughing, I took it away and gave her a new piece, first demonstrating how to take a taste of it. She looked at me like I was nuts, and blew her nose once again. I guess it will save money on dental work later.