February, Including a Hike

I don't leave the house much these days. There's not a lot of time between morning and afternoon naps, especially when you factor in the fact that lunch has to happen in that time. I seem to spend all day every day feeding kids, cleaning up after feeding kids, cleaning the kitchen, changing diapers, sometimes cooking dinner, putting kids to bed, etc. Every night I mourn the fact that I didn't get anything done. The house doesn't get cleaned. I don't read. Exercise often falls by the wayside. I'm confused about why everybody else is so much better at this home-and-family thing than I am. I want to do fun things with the girls and teach them to be outdoorsy, but I want the house to be clean and orderly first. That means every Saturday, especially, is a dilemma. Do we clean and get done everything I should've done during the week but didn't manage to, or do we play? We usually go for a run (see below), but the rest of the day lately has usually been used for junk around the house.

Early this month, for the first time in too long, we went on a little hike. We found a nice trail along a river in Fallbrook. There was a lot of whining and lagging on Ever's part for the first half, but her performance on the way back improved enough to earn her a frozen yogurt stop on the way home. We were pleasantly surprised by this trail and would like to hit it again in the fall when the trees are pretty.

Ever plopped down on this bench and didn't want to walk anymore:

We got really far ahead of her, and she still wasn't moving. Finally some other people came along behind us, and when they reached her she finally jumped up and took off running toward us . . .

. . . and past us . . .

 . . . and then she hung out on another bench until we caught up:

Blow this one up. The sweet face is worth it (Jim's is nice, too):

We sat on the rocks overlooking the river and ate lunch. Missy looked like an '80s rapper in Jim's hat:

Tiny One fell asleep on the way back:

In honor of Coco, I tried to take a jumping picture of Ever. Totally struck out. I just got the before and the after:

Other goings-on in February included a post-preschool trip to the park with Ever and Ella. Wrenzo enjoyed the swings:

Wrenzo started taking phone calls:

Ever and I cut out a bunch of hearts and used some of them to make this string for Valentine's (which Ever very carefully calls "Valenstine"):

Jim had red roses and chocolate-covered strawberries delivered to me for Valentine's because he's nice like that. He, Ever, and I enjoyed all the strawberries on Saturday February 13. 

Then Sunday (Valentine's Day) we hosted a dessert night with a few new families/couples in the ward. We had hoped to connect certain people we thought would get along or otherwise appreciate one another. A couple of the original invitees couldn't make it, and the mix of people ended up being less than ideal. Ever had fun with the kids who came, but otherwise I can't say it was a roaring success. I'm planning to try again, though, because it seems like a nice idea. Anyway, since the dessert night was on Valentine's, I tried to make it a little festive (hence the string of hearts, above). I made a fruit pizza that ended up pretty delish, along with way too many sugar cookies with pink frosting and chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter cups. Poor picture of the fruit pizza, which was definitely the most popular dessert of the evening:

Monday, February 15, I made sweet bread french toast and served it to Ever with Nutella as a special Valentine's treat. She was in heaven:

I guess Valentine's, for me, is all about treats.

Later that week, Ever spent most of a morning on a "project" for Daddy. The main event was this page with pieces of ribbon and paper she carefully cut out and glued on:

Then she worked on a number of other pages and wanted to wrap them them all up. I cut the original piece of wrapping paper for her. I think I both underestimated the size required and also did not totally understand just how spread out she wanted all of the enclosed papers to be. She did not want them stacked. She ended up cutting out a bunch of little pieces of wrapping paper trying to cover the top. Each time, she let out a little grunt or exclamation of frustration when she realized the piece was, again, too small to cover the remaining opening. A lot of wrapping paper and a lot of tape were used in the making of this project.

We let Ever spend some of the gift money she has received. In two different trips, she picked out a Transformer (inspired by the one with which Ian Lindsay's son, Imi, was playing when we saw them at the farmers market over Christmas) and a Barbie (inspired by the ones at Tutu's). On the second shopping trip, Ever asked if she could get something for Christian and Kara Karner. I told her if she wanted to spend some of her money on that, she could. (I recently read that making kids buy their own "wants" while parents provide only their "needs" somehow makes them more generous. Interesting.) So Ever spent $10 on herself and made sure she had some ($5) leftover to get something for the Karners. We were looking at toys, but because I told her it was going to be hard to find something for $5 that they would all enjoy, she ended up buying them a big bag of jellybeans. She wrapped it up and everything. Then last week she decided that she would like to give away the tea set she just recently bought for herself (again, with gift money) and hasn't even used yet. I am not sure exactly why she wants to gift it, but she discussed with Jim giving it to Ellie Hammond in the ward - one of the kids who came over for dessert night. I'm supposed to text Ellie's mom and see if Ellie has a tea set already. I don't want people to be uncomfortable with random gifts, but I don't want to discourage Ever's generosity. It's so sweet.

We love our Saturday morning family runs. It always takes us a while to get out of the house, so a lot of the morning is taken up by preparations, the run, and then the now-traditional smoothie outing. Last week we ran six miles. Poor Jim pushed both girls in the giant stroller up all sorts of hills. It was quite nice for me. The girls are good:

I think Wrenzo's head has gotten big enough, and her hair has come in enough, that she can pull off the Aunt Jemima headband now:

This morning Ever asked me to read "The Happy Prince" to her. She sat with me and listened attentively to the entire thing - about a half hour of a grown-up story with no pictures. (I hadn't planned to read the whole thing, so we actually ended up being a few minutes late to church because of this.) As soon as I finished, she said, "Another one!" What four-year-old does that?

I took Ever out on her bike once. I didn't bring the rope to throw around the handle bars; I figured it would be too hard to pull Ever while pushing Wren in the big jogging stroller. Nanny takes Ever out on her bike on Tuesdays sometimes, and Ever was a lot better than the last time I saw her ride. She wanted to ride down the steep hill just up from our house (which leads to a fork to two small culs-de-sac). I told her she couldn't ride down that hill unless she knew how to use the brakes, and she showed me once that she could brake. I let her go. She picked up speed incredibly quickly, and it was instantly clear to me that she was not going to brake but was going to fly down the hill and crash at the bottom. I pushed the stroller to the side of the road and left it pushed up against the curb. I didn't take time to put the brake on and was afraid Wrenzo would come rolling down after us. But I left her and took off down the hill to stop Ever. I caught up to her and nearly made her fall while trying to stop her. (It was hard not tripping on the training wheels.) She had taken her feet off the pedals and was trying to slow herself down with her slippers on the street. Never, while she was racing down the hill, did she make a peep. When I stopped her and picked her up, however, she started crying loudly. As soon as I got her, I saw the Jarvises running out to help. They had seen her coming down the hill and were slightly terrified. Another neighbor at the top of the hill came rushing out shortly thereafter. He said he didn't see Ever; he just saw me leave the stroller and start sprinting down the hill. Jim Jarvis pulled Ever's bike back up the hill for us, and he said, "Good job, Mom." I said, "Yeah - recovering from the huge parenting fail of letting her go down this hill." Jim was displeased, to say the least, when I told him about the incident. He couldn't believe I'd let her go down there. He said she would always think she could do things she couldn't, and I couldn't let her. I was so glad I was able to stop her. If she had hit the curb at the bottom and flown off her bike and gotten hurt, Jim would not have forgiven me. I never was able to figure out what Ever was thinking. When I asked her afterward, it seemed as if maybe she wasn't really afraid and was enjoying the speed; I may have just freaked her out with my reaction. When I asked her what she was planning to do when she got to the bottom, at first she said she didn't know. Then she said she was going to turn a little bit and go up into the cul de sac. Jim agreed that she would've crashed her if I hadn't stopped her. Thank goodness it all ended well.

Slowly, Wrenzo is adding tricks to her repertoire. She waves now. She waves when I take her out of the room to put her to bed, when someone says "hi" or "bye," when someone leaves, or even, at least once, when Jim turns on the car in the morning. It's super adorable. So, signing off:

Mostly January

Every January 1, the Silversteins have a big tamale-making party. (Jimmy is part Mexican, so I think that's the inspiration.) They munch on various niblets and spend hours making millions of tamales, which they then cook and deliver to friends. We were invited for the first time this year. Wrenzo was well-behaved. Her tongue keeps her busy:

The Karners, Jim, and Ever hard at work:

I mostly just hung out and didn't help much, but I did make a few so I could say I did. That night the Silversteins delivered a bag of tamales to us, along with some salsa to serve with them. They were really delicious. Ever even loved them, despite the spice.

One day I was doing dishes when Ever came up to me and started trying sort of discreetly to get me to look at her. I didn't know why. She finally said, "Look at me when we're talking." I looked down, and there were her little bare buns. She had turned her back to me, and her britches were right below her bottom. Sort of a had-to-be-there moment, but it was hilarious. She said her pants had fallen down, and she thought it was funny.

Ever loves making cards for people. She wrote this one for Wren all by herself. She asked me how to spell each word; I told her the letters, and she wrote them. I couldn't believe she knew how to write all the letters without even copying them. It's a little hard to follow where she continued each line/word, but it's all there. She did an amazing job.  "Dear Wren, thank you for being sweet."

I can't remember what we did this day to wear her out, but she almost never falls asleep outside her room. Sleeping beauty:

I was recently converted to the Turbie Twist. It makes the post-shower routine easier and faster. Ever likes to borrow it:

Ever honed her photo-taking skills:

As soon as we got back from Christmas, we got sick. (When I say "we," I mean primarily the littles.) Then we got sick with something else. I couldn't go to work for two weeks, thanks to the girls' high fevers, then some diarrhea and vomiting. The vomiting inspired me to french braid Ever's hair for the first time - to keep it out of her face in case she threw up again.

When we got back from Christmas, we discovered a bug infestation. These brown bugs with rarely-seen wings seemed to be coming in and dying in droves. Every day, multiple times a day, I was cleaning up carcasses:

I kept thinking it was some freak seasonal thing that would stop. Eventually I got Terminix involved. After way too many weeks, as well as multiple Terminix visits and telephone calls, the technician discovered that our firewood was infested. The fireplace and wood box were cleaned out, and the bugs disappeared. Hallelujah.

Jim has finished a play area in the backyard. He hung a baby swing on the hanging-plant hooks, and Wrenzo laughed so much when she went for her first ride.

Ever loves wearing my shoes. She looks so much like my cousin Nicole's daughter Avenlee in this picture:

I haven't been good at taking and posting videos of Wrenzo's various modes of transportation. This was the first way she started getting around:

Special bonuses in that video: 

1) A glimpse of one of Wrenzo's first tricks: clapping. She automatically clapped when I said, "Yea!" One other trick she learned around the same time was touching her head. We'd say, "Wrenzo, touch your hair" or "touch your head," and she'd clap her hands to the top of her head. Once I was using that to try to get her hands out of the way when I was feeding her. I told her to touch her hair, and up went her hands. I started to go in with the spoon, but without thinking I said, "Yea!" because she'd done a good job touching her head. Down came her hands, clapping right into the spoon. Oops. I forgot that she always claps when I say "Yea!" 

2) Ever's bubble voice asking, "What tastes different about the crackers?" Her voice is so great.

Sometimes Wrenzo is so cute I can't handle it:

She gets into cupboards now:

(This winter she has also suffered from dry weather-induced red cheeks, featured, along with a lanolin slather, in the above picture.)

I braided Ever's hair for church. Normally she doesn't like it all up like that, but she was a little pleased that she looked like Anna from Frozen. The picture doesn't really do her justice. She looked so grown-up:

Dustin told Courtney he didn't think she could go two weeks without desserts. She took the challenge, and I joined her. Since I generally each chocolate and junk all day every day, I was actually amazed that with Bags' support, it wasn't so bad. I had plenty of sugar in my meals and drank fruit juice when I was wanting a treat, but I did it. After the two weeks were up, I thought I'd have dessert only on the nights we've designated as "treat nights" for Ever - Sunday, Monday, and Friday. I did that for about a week. At this point, though, I'm back to my old self. Wish I could lose the last few pounds of baby weight, but my compulsions are hard to overcome.

We were on a family run in Carlsbad one Saturday morning, and I saw a sign for an outdoor showing of Frozen on January 31. Obviously a daddy/daughter date was in order. I sent them off with beanies, jackets, blankets, and hot chocolate. I took this of Ever before they left:

Jim took this of her while they were there:

I was a little jealous that Jim got to take her - until they got home. When he walked in, Jim said, "You have no idea what I've been through." Shortly after the movie began, so did the rain. Ever refused to leave. They watched the whole movie in the rain. Jim said many others stayed for a lot of it, but almost nobody else was left at the very end. Jim was drenched through all his clothes and was freezing. Ever for some reason refused to put on her jacket and wore only her long-sleeved t-shirt. Although Jim was completely miserable, I think she considered the evening a big success.

Lastly, some Ever quotes:

1) She was singing one day and making up the weirdest lyrics. This is what I caught: "I can be a social prize. I can know the Lord. With angelic hosts proclaim..."

2) She was riding her scooter and kept saying, "Go faster, scooter! Thank you!" I thought it was so nice that she thanked it.

3) We were talking about baby names. Jim asked, "What about Erin?" Ever said, "Errands are trips. Why would you want to name your child after a trip?"

4) "Mama, sometimes it makes me sad because other children have earrings."  (She wants earrings, too.) I don't know why she always says "child" and "children" when I say "kid(s)," but it's adorable.

5) Ever is OBSESSED with baptism. She talks pretty much every day about getting baptized, when she can get baptized, etc. Almost every bedtime, she requests that we sing the Primary song "When I Am Baptized (I Like to Look for Rainbows)." She almost always wants to talk about baptism for family home evening. Once, she said something about how you can repent when you get baptized. I said, "Yes, you can repent and be forgiven when you get baptized, so you're all clean. But what about after you get baptized? Do you think Daddy and I have been perfect since we got baptized?" She said, "No. You can get a little bit baptized when you take the sacrament." (I incorporated that into the presidency message I gave in Relief Society this month.) Today she asked how many birthdays till she can get baptized. I told her four. She said, "Four plus four equals baptism."

6) Tutu bought Ever a Frozen memory game on their post-Christmas shopping spree. When she pays attention, Ever is really good at it. I think she's played it every day since she got it, usually multiple times. She has certain cards that are her favorites. Others - the ones of the mean character, Hans - she and Jim have designated "P.U. cards." When she gets those matches, she keeps the cards face down because they're stinky, yucky P.U. cards.

Hawaii: Breakfast, Beach, & Sparklers

Monday was our grand finale. Mamo took Ever shopping in Kona that morning, making all of Ever's dreams come true. Pod went to work. Jim, Wren, and I walked with Coco and Dun Dun to Hawaiian Style Cafe for breakfast. Coco and I shared french toast (and hash browns, which are not pictured):

Dustin ordered the "Big Moke Loco Moco." He accidentally pronounced "moke" like "mock" and was sore ashamed. He acknowledged his mistake to the waitress later in an honorable attempt to alleviate any embarrassment caused to his "local" wife.

After breakfast we detoured to Longs Drugs before heading home. As I was checking out, the girl bagging my stuff asked, "Whitney Hastings?" I looked at her name tag, which said "Becky," and realized she had been at Waimea School with me. She said I looked just the same (yeah, right!), and she still sees my mom around town. When she saw Courtney, she asked if she (Courtney) was the baby. At first I was confused and wondered if she thought Courtney were my baby, which would offend me. Then it became clear that she remembered Courtney from when Courtney was a baby. Mamo must have brought wee Courtney to school or school activities or something? Anyway, it was amazing that Becky not only recognized me but remembers my full name and our family. I never would have been able to tell you her name, and I probably wouldn't even have recognized that I knew her from somewhere. This is not good news about my memory. Early-onset, here I come.

Bags took this shot on the walk back home. Our beloved street:

We headed down to Mauna Lani for one more beach trip. Shortly after we left the house, we noticed a stench in the car. I thought maybe it was coming from something rotting in the back. Bags seemed to think it was coming from Dustin, who was in the front next to her. Dustin smelled himself all over and then repeatedly proclaimed that it was not he. Bags still looked skeptical, but she tried to be nice. There was much discussion about how awful it was and what the source could be. When we piled out of the car at the beach, it was quickly ascertained that Dustin's shorts were, indeed, the culprit. He'd been rinsing them out after our adventures, but they had not been washed. The stench was truly awesome, and Dustin was mortified. He jumped in the ocean as soon as he could, and that was an excellent temporary remedy. After his dip, he could relax and enjoy:

Mamo and Ever joined us shortly after we arrived. Missy found a rock she liked:

Coco held a brief photo shoot with Wrenzy:

The boys snorkeled, and Coco and I swam out to the point with Ever on the boogie board. The point looks so close when you're on the beach, but when you're out there, it feels as if you're far out.

Miss Leigh borrowed my glasses on the way home. She looks a lot more glam in them than I do:

Poor Wrenzo was so tired by the time I got her to bed. Coco tried to document her ugly cry face:

Miss Leigh showed off her goodies from the shopping spree with Tutu. She was so excited about her Elsa dress-up clothes, including long sought-after "tall shoes":

After Wren went to bed, it was dinnertime for the bigger people. Pod and Jem ignored our calls to come for dinner and proceeded to discuss the shortfalls of their weather apps while the rest of us waited patiently (or not) at the dinner table:

Since it was our last night, we (mainly Ever) did a bunch of sparklers in honor of the New Year's Eve that was to come.

Ever loved them and was not at all afraid:

Pod tried to backward-write Ever:

He has perfected his own name:

Ever danced:

The next morning we said our goodbyes and headed back to CA. It was such a wonderful trip. We did lots of things, but we didn't pack in too much. We Kringels are slow at everything because of the chilluns, but everyone was patient with us. Flying with a Wrenzo is less than ideal, but it was totally worth it.  

Speaking of flying, a note about the return trip:  

In his old age, Pod has developed a weird problem - he can't drive all the way to Hilo without a pit stop. He said it doesn't happen on the way to Kona, and it doesn't happen on the way back from Hilo; he just always has to hit a lua on the way to Hilo. 

Packing was hard, and we left the house a little later than we should have. Despite the lateness, we stopped at a Pizza Hut so Pod could go to the bathroom. (Once we stopped, Ever decided she also had to go.) 

Then the lady at the airport who checked us in was not friendly, and she gave us a hard time about not having Wren's birth certificate with us. (The point of the birth certificate is to make sure the baby is under two. Obviously Wrenzo is not yet two years old.) Then the lady, who initially seemed so anti us, started telling stories about her progeny, car seats, and I don't remember what else. She was not in any rush to check us in. I wasn't watching the time and had no idea how late it was. As we were getting through security (which is amazingly line-less in Hilo), Jim said that the flight was supposed to take off in about five minutes. Some woman came rushing down from the gate looking for us, and just as we started following her, her colleague upstairs began paging us over the loudspeaker. We rushed onto the plane, and it began taxiing before we were even all the way in our seats. Never has there been a closer call.

The flight from Honolulu to San Diego was probably Jim's least-favorite travel experience of all time. Right as we were getting ready to take off, I realized Wren had a pooper. Jim got up with her to change her but stopped to ask a flight attendant for permission. The flight attendant said he had to wait until the seat belt signs were off; we were beginning to taxi, and it's too dangerous to be up when the plane is moving. Jim sat back down. Then he discovered he had poop on his shirt - both on the body of his shirt and a little on his sleeve. He had to sit there with blowout Wrenzo and poop on his shirt for about a half an hour, until we did all the taxiing, took off, and got all the way up in the air. He was furious with the flight attendant and kept talking about how ridiculous it was that he hadn't been able to change her; he could have changed her ten times before we even took off. I was uncomfortable because the flight attendant was seated right behind us and was certainly hearing everything. When the long wait was over and Jim could finally get up, he took Wren to the bathroom while I got his backpack out of the overhead bin to find him clean clothes. (Thank goodness he took his clothes in his carry-on.) It was a rough time. Things got better once everyone was cleaned up, although 10 months is just a hard age on a plane. Our elder daughter provided a moment of levity, spawned by her desire to watch Frozen again on that flight. I said, "You've seen Frozen so many times. When are you going to get sick of it?" Ever said, "My response is: Never."