A little piece of Heaven.

Although Heaven will only be complete with all of our children surrounding us, this sure was a devine four days away. San Diego was the destination, and eating, relaxing, sleeping, and generally doing nothing was the agenda. We stayed at a beautiful water front resort. We had glorious sea level running paths (with a finally recovered foot!), In-n-Out for lunch nearly everyday, amazing restaurants on every street corner. And did I mention the kids stayed home?! It was peaceful and quiet and beautiful and essential.

Does anyone recognize my location? This was on Mother's Day. We drove up to La Canada for church on Sunday. What a treat to see so many old friends. EVERYONE wondered where mom and dad were and when they would be back! The Ballard's graciously invited us over for dinner after church. Although we didn't stay to eat, we did love visiting with all of them and feeling back "at home" again. After leaving the Ballard's, we went to Old Town to have a romantic Italian dinner, and then made the trek back down to San Diego. We even had time to stop in San Juan to say hello to Alyssa and Taylor Lark, and score another pair of free sunglasses, thanks Larks!

Monday was our last day in San Diego so we wanted to at least see a few sights. After a bit of time pool side we decided to be tourists. This is us standing in Balboa Park at a botanical garden. It was amazing!

Then on our way to Old Down San Diego we happened past the Mormon Batallion visitor center where we went in to watch the movie and dress up in the costumes to honor our heritage.

And thank goodness we got home when we did. Or else we might have missed George loosing his frist tooth, and more blood at the dinner table than we have ever seen! Our kids make us who we are, and make the last ten years together have more meaning than we could have created otherwise, but having a few days away is priceless!

Farewell friends!

Huh?

Mystery of the morning... What is this strange spill on the back porch?

When the girls went out to scare the squirrel out of the bird feeder they discovered this disaster. I asked everyone if they knew anything about it, but everyone denied involvement.

Finally George said, "maybe someone got really bored yesterday and did a science experiment or something."

Yeah, maybe someone did...

First, a couple things about today...

1. If there are GoGurts anywhere in the house, they will be eaten. No matter how much other food has been consumed. No matter how many times you say no.
   
2. I officially hate the game Kerplunk. And all the many tiny marbles and sticks that come with it. There is no photographic proof, but those marbles were the cause two slip and falls to the ground.
   
3. Annee-- what's up with the switches for the kitchen lights? Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't...
   

We spent Sunday morning at the park. I ran as many laps as I could around the grass before everyone got unbearably bored and needed activity ideas.
We made it to over half of church with the help of some marshmallows. Everyone was bathed, dressed and fed. There was lots of friendly faces and encouragement from fans of the Earnests! Dinner was on the table by 5:30 and, as a special blessing to me, everyone ate it! And lots of it! It made me surprisingly happy. After dinner, we worked on a special dessert, Dirty Mud Pies as George named them. I tried all weekend to find flower pots but never found them in stock so we had to use cups and you'll have to use your imagination... The highlight for George was stepping on the bag of Oreos to crush them up. I'm glad everyone had fun, despite the fact that finding a worm in the pudding was pretty distressing for Jane. (Before going to bed George reminded me three times to be sure to leave the recipe for his mom. He said I should put it on my website so everyone could have this delicious dessert. Haha, here it is - equal parts chocolate pudding, cool whip, oreos. He's cute.)




I've noticed it's unfortunately easy to let the boys slip to the back burner, since the girls require so much immediate and complete attention. I find myself with high expectations for Henry, forgetting that he's only 8 years old! So I've tried to be quite laid back with them after the girls go to bed. Lucky for Henry, I love playing Guitar Hero so that's one fun activity we can do together.
Now I'd better get to bed. You never know how early the next day will start!

We're all still smiling.

Saturday is donut day! After buying and eating delicious Dunkin Donuts, we had a lazy morning getting dressed and out the door. George played with a friend so Henry, Jane & Ruby and I went to McDonalds to play and pass some time. Watching them play together was precious.

George returned and we all headed to the mall for some fun! (It was just too cold for outdoor activities) The kids played Glow Golf for a while and in the end we walked away with 4 free passes! I guess if you get a hole in one on the last hole (or are very adorable) you get a free pass to return!

We next went in to see Street Racer, or tried to! I found the movie to be kinda boring but I think the boys liked it. The girls enjoyed the first 25 minutes before they were ready for a new activity. We "played" video games and visited the pet store and put on lots of dancing shows for the people outside KMart. Next, we found an empty theatre where the girls ran around the seats for a solid 40 minutes. Their energy is amazing!

Home, dinner, jammies, bed. Me included. I was out by 8:35pm.
--Rachel Z.

Did we have fun today?

Is it normal for a house to get this out of control by the end of the day or is this just a pretend mom thing...?? I just decided to stop fighting it today. Wow!

Don't worry, I promise I'm cleaning right now.

Day 1 - Success!

So this is a report on the happenings on Dancing Horse Dr. while mom and dad are away.

The morning got off to a bright and early start as George came in to wake Jane and me up at 6:45am, he was fully dressed, ready for games day. (How can I be related to this kid...) Breakfast(s) were made, kids dressed, sunscreen applied, lunches packed, and out to the bus stop they went!

The girls and I cleaned up and got dressed. This is no small feat. Actually doing anything with these girls takes about 4 times longer than it otherwise would. At least they're completely pleasant while they're lagging so it's not very annoying (not yet anyway!). We were all ready to go when I realized the clothes they were wearing were very small and tight and showed off a lot of belly. Apparently I had dressed them from the 18-24month "For June" pile. One more costume change, finally to the car.

Off to the gym! I love the fancy treadmills at the Briargate YMCA, and I think the nursery cam is neat, but I don't love that to hear the audio of Rachael Ray's interview with McDreamy Patrick Dempsey I needed to bring an FM radio. Who even has one of those anymore?

About 30 minutes into my run, a grumpy nursery lady came to find me and escort me off the premises. Apparently it's against serious rules (and laws?) to have me drop Jane and Ruby off at the kids club instead of Annee. Cross that activity off the list for Saturday and Monday... At least I got 3 miles of intervals done before I had to go!

Next stop - Barnes and Noble to buy a Kids Sudoku book and a Spain travel book. We managed to get out of there with all kids alive, despite some parking lot scares and a little old lady who said "well it's very brave of you to come out in public with them!" Huh?


Next on the list - Target. This was fun activity. I let the girls lead the way after I gathered the items I needed. They added brushes, accessories, watering cans, shovels, glitter to the cart saying after each addition, "This will make mom so so happy to see."

After checking out, the girls got to have popcorn and a strawberry/cherry drink. Things were going well until we had to leave the store and Ruby realized I didn't actually purchase all the things she added to the cart. At which point her break down began. And lasted 2.5 hours.

Back at home, Ruby went to sleep and Jane played happily with the neighbor while I retrieved Henry and George from Games Day. George was happy to report he got 1st place in the 3-legged race! We came home and I began feeding everyone, because I know from personal experience that guys don't handle life well when they're hungry. Unfortunately, the feeding never really stopped so when it was time to sit down for pizza dinner, no one was hungry. In total, 1.5 slices were eaten by the children. Oops!

Somehow I fell asleep for 30 minutes on the couch after dinner while everyone played. I awoke to find Jane and Ruby having a burping war(?). Did you know Jane can burp on command? It's actually kinda funny! And once she starts, she doesn't stop, as though she had the hiccups. So silly.

With the girls tucked away, I finally taught George how to play Sudoku - he caught on quick! He'll be ready for more lessons from Grandma Z at Beach Week. We played some Monopoly before they finally went to bed.

Phew! We made it! The real test will be tomorrow - a full day with no scheduled activities. Wish me luck!

--Rachel Z.

We snuck away.

My sister Rachel showed up and we got to fly off into the sunset!! After achieving such a milestone as ten years of wedded bliss, we agreed that it was worthy of an occasion. I hope Rachel will act as guest blogger while we are away. She is sure to have amazing adventures as well as misadventures in the company of her four nieces and nephews! I hope they all come away friends still in the end. Thank you, thank you, Rachel!!

Last night and today.

Last night at the last minute Darin let me go off and get a hair cut. Thank you Darin. It was a lovely hour spent relaxing and feeling pampered.

When I came home, we were fast approaching bedtime. The kids were miraculously playing together very happily with the spy toys from their Wacky Packs. I went down stairs to say hi to everyone, and then went back upstairs. After a little while I realized I had not seen Ruby yet. The boys had told me that their two bedroom doors were locked, so they couldn't get in their room again. We've had this happen before and it ended in a nasty twisty ankle. So I started putting the pieces together and figured that Ruby had to be in that room. But there was NO sound! So George started banging on the doors so loud the neighbors probably heard. I had gone outside to look in their window to see if she had fallen asleep on their beds?

When all of the sudden I saw the cabinet door swing open and a sleepy looking Ruby walk over and unlock the door. She came walking upstairs looking all confused, and said to me, "Mommy, I'm so tired, I was sleeping." It's still unclear to me how she climbed into that cupboard, shut it and fell asleep, but that seems to be what happened. As mentioned in a previous post, bathrooms in our house do seem to be the only place one can go for a minute of refuge. But sleeping there, that's taking it to a whole new level! I'm just glad she woke up!



P.S. Darin, the birds seem very excited about the pile of leftover seed on the railing. It even seems to have attracted a new variety this afternoon. Maybe it's the variety that doesn't like to stand in trees while eating, but prefer a patio setting? Do you think they mention that in the bird book? I'll look it up.

Some pictures speak for themselves.

And I could go on and on. I'm pretty pleased.

Survival skills required.

I could hear all the commotion while I was downstairs in the basement. But it was unclear to me what the deal was. So on my way up the stairs I saw a little pair of feet behind the bathroom door..

Ruby's feet.

And then Jane came to try again to bang loud enough so her sister would open up. When I asked Ruby to open the door so that I could see what the coveted item was they were fighting over, here is how I found her.

I say let them work it out for themselves. If Ruby has figured out that she can run into the bathroom and lock her sister out, I say go ahead and give that technique a try. I hope in the end that she we find that singing hymns alone in the bathroom is not as fun as sharing a hymn book with your sister and singing together. But I will admit, every now and then I lock myself in the bathroom too, and it has nothing to do with needing to use the facilities.

Sometimes you just need to let the storm pass before you can come back out. And that is our Earnest survival skill tip of the day!

Life in the fast lane.

I am finally feeling like our time is starting to run out. Now when we do things, I keep thinking to myself, "this is the last time we do this, until we move..." So we are trying to live it up to the fullest before we go!

Saturday was the Primary Developing Talents Show. It was a great idea for all you other primary workers out there. One of the easiest quarterly activities we've planned. We told all the kids to think of a talent they were working on, and think about how they could showcase it at our talent show. We had a display table for all the kids who wanted to make something ahead of time and have it on display. Then we had a little stage, a piano, and we were in the gym to facilitate any demonstration these kids could think of. The displays ranged from a little Sunbeam who got up on stage and buttoned his shirt, to another little boy who brought his bike to show us how to ride his bike. Some kids built things out of legos, some made art. It was a very cute idea!

Here's how we participated:

Henry decided to cook his favorite dessert bars to share with everyone. So we took pictures of him in the kitchen to put on display with his peanut butter bars. Rave reviews for Henry!

George displayed an art book which he worked on throughout the week. And then was convinced to play his recital song. It was his first live piano performance, and he was personally thrilled with his ability to perform in front of an audience. Way to go George!

Not to be left out, our girls volunteered to represent the nursery kids and got up on the stage to sing a duet of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars". I was afraid they would fight over the ONE microphone, so I went up there to be a neutral hand holder on the microphone. I guess I was mouthing along the words, because mid-song Jane stopped them and said to me, "Mom, we don't need any help." That got me giggling through the whole rest of their song. It was too cute. I'm somehow thinking this is a small foreshadowing of our future with these ladies!

Then on Sunday, Darin started auditioning for husband of the year award with some seriously delicious meals! I love Sunday. The pear clafoutti made a come back, and was divine once again!

And then, just to make sure I fell in love with him all over again, he made me a sweet potato stuffed ravioli (every part of it made from scratch). The smell was intoxicating and I ate myself stuffed. To top it all off, after devouring my raviolis, he let me go for a lovely and long walk all around the neighborhood, all by myself! He's my favorite guy, without any competition!!

On Monday, we had our first of three track meets. George performed like a champ. He had a blast. The one lap distance is much more fun for little boys who like to sprint. Notice the weather, we have been blessed recently. Henry unfortunatley broke out in a prominent rash all over his face and arms about an hour before the race. It was so strange, but Darin thought it best to not have him be at the track meet. Henry was quick to agree, so George and I had a fun date to the track. We hope Henry will be able to be out there next week. This is by far my favorite activity that my kids participate in. I swear, I'm not biased at all!

Tuesday night we made a monumental effort to rendez vous with a photographer at a beautiful downtown park. She was outstanding. We'll see how the photos actually turn out, but, by the end, she had over 300 shots. That's my kind of photographer! Best of all, she doesn't have rights over any of them! I hope to post those soon. *Please note, it truly was a monumental effort! Coordinated outfits, an outdoor location, hairdos, full tummies ahead of time, ironing, the whole ordeal. Why do we do this to ourselves, I wonder sometimes? In my case, I guess it's because I just don't want to forget. These have been some beautiful years here in CS, and I hope to have them etched in our memories forever.