My Little Dancing Molly

Last Friday Rob and I got to go watch Molly do a dance performance at her school that was similar to the one Ben was involved with a few months ago. It's the same group from the U of U; the one we got a little preview for in an earlier post. They give the kids some dance instruction and a little guidance along the way, but they essentially let the children choose their own themes and create their own dances. It was fun to see Molly's individual interpretations of the dances they performed!!

***WARNING***

Watch video at own risk
May cause vomitting...or worse....

(Any possible sickness incurred is by no means the fault of the performers)

(7 May 2010)

Copy Cats

I've heard that kids learn by imitating

what they see others do....but I always thought that was little kids

imitating what they see bigger people do...

not the other way around. :)

(7 May 2010)

Molly and Ben get a kick out of watching

the funny/cute things that Chloe does and then copying her :D

It's pretty fun to watch because it's entertaining and
it shows that they really do love their little sister. :)

(11 May 2010)

There's A Whole Big World Out There!!!

Chloe has suddenly started to notice the world around her....well, her little world:

Her change table is surrounded by little furry friends, some of them are stuffed animals and some are puppets. Just recently she's started noticing them and arching her back to see them and reach them when I lay her down to change her.

The one she reaches for and looks at most is a parrot puppet.

Last Thursday she noticed some toys that have been hanging above her bassinet since she was born. We heard noises on the monitor when she was taking a nap so we turned on the video screen and saw her reaching up and pulling on the little elephant toy. It's so fun watching her discover her little world!

(6 May 2010)

Mother's Day

My sweet family woke me up with breakfast in bed for Mother's Day.
(I didn't tell them but I was secretly hoping they would do that for me.) :P

They hung out for a little while in my bed with me


Molly gave me her gift on Friday...

a flower pen, a portrait/drawing of me, and a letter to me
(She made them in school)

Chloe started her mother's day gift on Saturday...
She started sleeping without needing to be swaddled,
and hasn't needed to be swaddled since!!

Rob bought me some flowers to wear, and Molly made sure I got them on. ;)
I'm not so good at putting them on so we got Paula's help....although they didn't last long...I crushed them from holding Chloe. Oh well, it's the thought that counts. :)

Molly told me that she and Ben decided together that their gift would be not to "argue and quibble" (where did they get that word??).....can every day be mother's day?!!?!?? :P

Molly also gave me another card on Sunday with the breakfast

And a flower after church that all the primary children
were given to give to their moms
Rob asked me if Mother's Day felt any different now that I had a biological child.

I reflected on that question for a while and determined that it honestly doesn't feel any different than the first Mother's Day I had as a mother.

My family is so sweet...my husband, my children...all three....and I'm so thankful for all of them!!

(9 May 2010)

On the Bright Side

Paula and I were back in the laundry room tonight working on our Mother's Day present to ourselves (organizing that room...it's already so much nicer!!!!!) when we heard several rapid rings of our doorbell. We thought it was probably Ben or Molly just playing. When we emerged from the laundry room we saw Rob out by our car with our neighbor from across the street looking at my car and pieces of it scattered on the ground. Molly said she thought somebody had broken into my car. I walked out there and my neighbor told me that somebody had run into my car and driven off. We could hear distant tire screeches a few streets over. A few seconds later a big black truck came careening around the corner back towards us. Our neighbor identified it as the truck she'd seen leaving our car all messed up. I couldn't figure out if he was drunk/crazy and coming back for more or if he was feeling remorse for driving off and coming back to talk to us. However it soon appeared that neither was the case for he suddenly turned right into the alleyway that runs behind the houses across the street. I told Rob he should chase him down and get his license plate number. Rob and I ran to get his shoes. We could hear tires screeching again from behind our neighbors' houses. Just has Rob was shoving his shoes onto his feet, the black truck returned again from the alley he'd gone down. I was still unsure of what to expect from this guy. He surprised me though by calmly pulling to the side of the road behind my car. He got out and apologized. He said he'd just reached down to grab his cell phone and didn't know exactly how he ended up side-swiping my car. There was an off-duty cop visiting our next-door neighbor. He came out and called one of his other cop friend's that was on duty. The guy was given a citation.

We all decided that it could have been much worse and that we are VERY grateful that nobody was hurt or out in the street when he passed by.....This experience was not so dramatic as my accident almost a year ago....but it makes me wonder....what's up with May?? Maybe my cars should take a sabbatical every May. :P

A New Record!!!!

Chloe just pooped for her third time in 48 hours!!!! Usually it's about once a week so this is a major accomplishment for her!! I'm amused at what excites me that I never would have imagined or anticipated!! I'll refrain from taking/posting pictures though. :P

18

18. 18.... it sounds like such a small, minuscule number. It's merely nine twice, or three sixes. 18 is the number of holes on a golf course. Eighteen is the age kids are suddenly considered adults...(to the person turning it, and to all their younger siblings it seems SO grown up...an eternity! And yet 18 seems to be younger every year.) 18 weeks, this past Tuesday, is Chloe's age. 18 short weeks!! Somehow it sounds even smaller than 4 months to me...and yet, I can hardly remember life without her.

My Cool Cat :)

My Cool Cat @ Yahoo! Video

The 6th grade at Ben's school did a dance unit with a special guest instructor from the University of Utah Dance Company. They did some fun interpretive dances and chants.

Most of their chanting was unintelligible to me...except for something about the promised land. :P
But it was lots of fun to watch my Cool Cat perform. ;)

5 March 2010

A Nite on the Town!!!

Rob won tickets at work for the 6th playoff game between the Utah Jazz and the Denver Broncos. It was to be the determining of the series. If they won, there would be no 7th game in the series and the Jazz would go on to play the Lakers....does it sound like I'm really into the Jazz since I know all this??? Not so much. ;)

We went, I asked Rob a lot of questions, some he could answer,
some he couldn't. He's not too much of a sports fan either, but he
knows more than I.

It was a really fun night out though. My sister Monica and her husband Cassidy watched our kids for us, so we had a night to just the two of us. I think that's our 2nd since we've had Chloe!! (She's pretty easy-going though so we've taken her on a couple other dates and she just sleeps most of the time). :)

After we dropped off my kids and their junk-food pizza :P at my sister's house, we drove downtown for the game. We got there shortly before the game and went down to the 'sponsor room' for the free meal that came with the tickets (since Rob's credit union sponsors the Jazz). I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the meal! I expected Famous Dave's or something but they had a nice salad, fruit, a bean and sausage soup, a pasta and beef dish, sauteed mushrooms and broccoli and a pork tenderloin. Cheesecake for dessert. We got there right before they were ready to clean up though, so we felt like they were standing around waiting for us to leave and literally grabbing our plates from under us just as we took the last bite of food off of them.

The game itself was pretty fun. It was a close game and there was lots of goings on to watch. I think I spent as much time watching the people in front of us as I did the actual game. :P
There was a super -mega fan a few rows in front of us. He had a "Williams #8" Jazz jersey on. Anytime Williams would score...or do anything noteworthy really...he would stand up and shake his jersey. Anytime the Jazz in general would score, or do anything noteworthy, he would stand up and yell. Anytime there was a foul he would stand up and mimic the ref. Anytime he felt there SHOULD have been a foul, he would stand up and do the "ref-ing" gestures and call a foul. Anytime there was a free throw he'd stand and boo or cheer. Anytime there was a three pointer he'd stand and shout and hold his arms wide with three fingers on each side.... Essentially, he was standing, gesturing, and shouting 94.3% of the time.

When we weren't watching 'Mr. Super-Fan' we watched the people just in front of us who were watching 'Mr. Super-Fan' and laughing and getting a kick out of him too.

And thirdly....and probably mostly....I watched two baby/toddler girls that were down in front of us. (One was more a baby, the other not quite 2 I guess.) They were both dressed in a "Williams #8" jersey/onsie-jumpsuit thing. (Apparently "Williams #8" is hot-stuff...unless we just ended up in the "Williams #8" fan club section). These little girls (each with a different couple) were SO cute and made me think about my little Chloe that I was now missing quite a bit. (It was already strange to be without her!!) The older one had little brown pigtails, which reminded me of Chloe's hair...if it stays dark brown....and well, if it ever grows. ;)

All-in-all, we had a really fun time even though we're not "Super-mega-fans", or even "super-fans".....or really even fans. We did leave after the third quarter...which any kind of fan probably would never have done! In fact we didn't see anyone but us leaving. But, being the non-fans we are, we were very keen on getting out of downtown before it became a grid-lock of super-mega-fans (either stoked by the win or crazy over the loss). As it was we left just as cops were setting up all kinds of confusing barricades and cones in the streets around the "Energy Solutions Arena".

We did listen to the rest of the game on the radio as we drove home, since we now had a vested interest in the game (we'd spent three hours of our lives watching it....we had to find out what those three hours meant!)

The Jazz won! Woo-hoo!

Are we converted? I think not. :)

Happy Birthday to Rob

Rob celebrated his birthday by giving himself the day off. ;)

First he went shooting with his dad. He came home just after the kids got off school and we piled into the car and headed to the chiropractor for a family visit. After that Rob took us all to "How to Train a Dragon" at the movie theater. It was a really fun movie, we all had a great time! On the way home we realized we were hungry and decided to take advantages of some free meals we had at two different places. It made dinner VERY affordable!! :D

I never thought to take any pictures. :/

Till that night, Chloe and I took a bath and she was just so cute in her little bear/outfit/towel that I couldn't help snapping a few pics. (I wasn't too keen on being in them tho). :P

Look at that happy baby. I just love her!! :)

(22 April 2010)