Snow?!

Here is the scene we woke up to this morning. It snowed on and off all weekend, but none of it stuck until today. I am such a weather wimp that it only took a second for me to decide not to run. I know, I know, people around here say it sometimes snows in June and July, but I'm ready for Spring. We are so ready, in fact, that we bought seeds last week and prepped them for planting. If the grounds ever thaws, we will plant Morning Glories, green beans and peas.

Weekend of food

To kick off the weekend, Dominic and I joined Aaron & Marrisse and Emily & Troy at Tepanyaki's to celebrate Dominic's graduation. Yeah, it's a little late, but with something as big as graduation, you really need to celebrate. Tepanyaki's was excellent. We've only been there a couple of times before, but it has never disappointed us. The best part of the evening was spending time with the Abbotts and Smalleys, without our children. When I mentioned to Dominic that we should get together with them more often, he pointed out that if it were easier to do, we would be doing that already. True.

Lisy has finally discovered cups. I introduced cups months ago, and Elisa quickly learned how to drink out of them but had no interest in liquids. Just recently she realized that we always have cups at mealtimes and she doesn't. So this weekend I've given her a cup of water for every meal, upon her insistence. Even though they are always sippy cups, somehow she manages to get water everywhere.

Between Sammy and Benjamin, they usually eat their whole dinner. Last night Benjamin ate the pasta and Sammy ate the green beans. Tonight Sammy ate the tomatoes and Benjamin ate the hot dogs; they both ate the couscous. I honestly never know who will eat what - their food preferences change often.

5K foolishness?

I am going to run a 5K fun run in July. Why, you ask? Well, it's like this: our stake is celebrating its 100th anniversary in July, and one of the celebratory activities is a run through all the wards in the stake. I haven't run seriously since high school, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Today I bought a pair of running shoes (half price!) and ran for 10 minutes. I wanted to quit after 4 minutes, but my goal was 10 and I did it. Unfortunately it took me several hours to recover fully. Should I blame it on the altitude? Nah, after living here 18 months, I'm just out of shape. That's when I started to think this might not be such a good idea. The run is in 4 months, so I have plenty of time to prepare. At least it's not a marathon.

P.S. Sammy had so much fun hunting Easter eggs yesterday that he's been hiding and finding them all day today. All but 2 eggs are either cracked or completely caved-in.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!! Easter may have been yesterday, but we celebrated it today so Dominic could join us. At least he gets paid double for working on a holiday, and it was less stressful celebrating today. After lunch we dyed eggs. Then we went to the store and bought half-priced candy. After dinner we hunted our dyed eggs, while the "Easter Bunny" hid the baskets. And of course the kids had a sugar-fest just before bed.

Elisa received baby food in her basket, so she kept trying to grab her brothers' chocolate, which resulted in lots of screaming: "No no Ee-ee! You can't eat candy!" Which reminds me, she won't eat regular baby food, so I add spices to it. Yesterday I put a little too much garlic in her vegetable stew. She gobbled it up, but her breath still smells garlicky today.

Sammy is getting too inquisitive. When I told him we talked to the Easter Bunny, who agreed to come a day later so Dad could join us, he kept asking how we talked to him. Um... email. When we let the kids loose in the house to find the baskets, he went straight to my bedroom closet (where all gifts are hidden), and he was perplexed that they weren't there. Once they had their baskets in-hand, he asked why he can't see the Easter Bunny. Um.. he's like Santa Clause and doesn't come if we see him... Ok, maybe he's like a super hero with a secret identity and he can't let anyone see him...

Benjamin enjoyed everything, but he kept cracking his eggs.

Children make us laugh

Here is Dominic playing World of Warcraft; Benjamin can fall asleep anywhere; Elisa kept trying to "type;" and Sammy was watching his dad play the game.




The kids are often saying and doing funny little things. Here are a few before I forget.

Sammy: I said, "Benjamin's feet, come here so I can put on your shoes;" he ignored me. Sammy laughing, said "silly feet!" Why? "Because they won't come to you."

The boys thought they wanted Slim Jims (the super greasy beef jerky). Benjamin took a bite and handed it back. Sammy put one in his mouth and declared he didn't like it. I insisted he take one bite (our rule with new food), but he refused. So he told Benjamin to be a dinosaur. Benjamin got down on all fours and growled. "Are you hungry?" Growl, growl. "This is dinosaur food!" and hand-fed the Slim Jim to Benjamin. I don't know if I'm annoyed to see Sammy manipulate Benjamin so easily, or if I'm impressed with Sammy's creativity to get Benjamin to eat something he didn't like.

Benjamin: Yesterday morning he came out of his bedroom wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, singing Darth Vader's theme song. Then he pulled off the hood and said, "I not evil anymore."

The other day I saw Benjamin surrounding the base of his bed with the big toys (such as the riding toys) and the vent cover. I reminded him not to play with the vent cover, then I picked it up and put it back. Suddenly, the cat came running out from under the bed and out of the room. The poor cat had been taking a nap under the bed, and Benjamin was trying to keep her there. He was sad when she left.

Elisa: She puts the handle of her binky in her mouth and laughs. She also holds small toys or socks in her mouth and crawls around. So far I haven't gotten any pictures, but I'm working on it.

Last week she took Benjamin's dinner roll; he was quite incensed. When he reached for it, she clutched the roll tighter, turned away, and hurriedly ate it. Dominic says that Benjamin and Elisa are arch nemeses because they're always taking things away from eachother.

Pronunciation guide: Elisa is eh-LEE-suh
We usually call her Lisy, lee-see, like our cousin
And occasionally I call her Isa, which is EE-suh.

Scriptural Influence

Children imitate everything they see. It's a well-known fact. So it's good we have scriptural videos (they're the ones Dominic and his brothers grew up with). This afternoon Benjamin came up the front steps saying, "Mommy Moses, I baby Moses and you're my Mommy Moses," and then he cooed like a baby. I really don't understand both his and Sammy's fascination with baby noises, but they like to coo.

Also from the videos, the boys have learned about Daniel and the lion's den. Now the space behind the couch, where they are not allowed to play, is the lion's den. There have been several recent incidences where I hear vicious growling and screaming, run to the living room, and find that one boy is a lion and the other is Daniel. Why can't one of them pretend to be the angel? There would be much less screaming and growling. Have I mentioned that Lisy is growling? She growls a lot, usually when watching her brothers play.

The boys also like to pretend to be Samuel the Lamanite. They'll stand on anything, be it a couch, chair, table, etc. Benjamin is constantly telling me to "Eepent or oo ill be eestoyed!" (Translation: "Repent or you will be destroyed!") They also try to see who can say 'repent' the loudest. Re-enacting Samuel the Lamanite's famous sermon all began back in December. I remember it well: it was midday, in a crowded doctor's office waiting room, Elisa sleeping in my arms, the boys playing quietly behind me. All of a sudden, I hear Sammy's voice, loud enough to carry across the room, calling out "Hey everyone! Hey everyone! Repent, repent!" I'm sure my face went bright red. Quickly as I could without dropping the baby, I turned around, gestured emphatically to get off the coffee table he was standing on, and shushed in a loud whisper. Confused, he protested, "but Mom, I'm Samuel the Lamanite. That's what he says." And thus commenced a discussion on appropriate times and places to pretend.

Who knows what they'll do next?

Cookie confession

Are cookies considered a meal? No, not really, but that's what we ate the last 2 nights. Ok, here's the deal: both yesterday and today we had a big mid-afternoon meal. It was too late to be lunch but too early for dinner. At our usual dinner time, no one was hungry. So we had an evening snack. Yesterday I made chocolaty peanut butter oatmeal cookies. Yummy. One consolation was that we also drank milk. Today the girl scout cookies arrived, and they became our evening snack. Mmm... samoas, with the coconut and caramel, delicious! Well, the nutritionist in me can't let it happen again, so tomorrow will be better. I hope.