The Party's at My House!

Youngest to oldest to shake things up...I'm really excited to be hosting this week's sister update.

Here we go:

Christine

 Last week: 
- Made it to yoga twice, once even at 6am with Sarah!  (I kind of wished there was a photographer there to capture a shot of Sarah and me doing headstands next to each other, not something you see us doing everyday.)
- Finally made it riding again!  (I was pretty sore throughout the week after all my returns to exercise!  Maybe I'll learn my lesson and not go quite so long next time...)
- Had a relaxing weekend studying and getting work done.  Overall it wasn't a very exciting week, things are pretty nonstop from now until the end of the semester, so I've gotta focus a lot on school.  Sadly I didn't check off anything from the Utah Bucket List.

This week - 
- Go riding twice.
- Make it to yoga twice again.
- Study for two tests and work on a lot of group projects and final assignments.
- Index 1,000 names. 

Rachel

Last week:
--I felt pretty sick this weekend, not sure what it is.  That's the best "I feel blah" photo I could muster.
--I settled on PB Heath Bar Blondies to bring to work.  They were ok although a little overdone I think.  I have to adjust to all the dark metal pans I have now.  They really absorb heat differently.
--I was asked to act as Amy B. Lyman, 16th president of the RS from the 1940s, at a RS activity on Thursday.  Costume and all.  I should have taken a photo of this!
--We went to the temple on Saturday.  I'm still totally a beginner. 
--We substituted for the 9 year old primary class.  They reminded me so much of George.
--I was assigned Italian Chicken and Porcupine Meatballs for the crock pot challenge.  Ken ended up having to cook one of them because the night I planned to make it work blew up and I had to stay til 2am.  My game summary is posted here: <http://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/2011/03/game-summary-porcupine-meatballs-vs.html> .

This week:
--I'll watch another BYU Basketball game this Thursday.  Their success is so exciting.  "Jimmer is the missionary who converted me to BYU Basketball."  Good one right?
--Stretch my winter clothes one more week before swapping in the spring/summer clothes.  I'm totally sick of everything but need to make them last as long as possible, b/c I'll feel the same way at the end of the summer.
--I'm scheduled to work 90 hours this week.  How's that going to happen?!
--My new calling is ward missionary.  So I should probably invite someone to watch conference next weekend... maybe?
--Looking forward to a new episode of Secrets from a Stylist <http://www.stylebyemilyhenderson.com/>  and Parenthood. 
--I will take some better pictures for next week.  Committing now!  

Ie Li

Last week, I

-took the kids to one day of preschool and one day of swimming
-did three P90X workouts
-cared for my sick Mei Li from Wednesday (It's still going on!  It's a monster virus!)
-wore my pajamas a lot and didn't leave the house for several days
-did so much laundry and disinfecting
-finished Mei Li's Easter dress
-made my first Walton feed order
-painted Mei's fingernails for girls' night in (before I could get to her toes, she told me she wanted to go to sleep)
-had an at-home date night with Steve watching BYU basketball and eating Buffalo Wild Wings

This week, I hope to

-get Mei Li healthy
-do P90X in the morning before kids wake up
-organize one room
-complete Stephen's baby quilt top
-get to bed early
-paint my toes!

Annee

Last Week:


-Got all crazy and sewed myself a new shirt.  You can read more about it HERE.  
-Ran 36 cumulative miles!!  That's the highest mileage week I've had in months.  
-Finally purchased a new mattress for me and Darin.  It's only taken about 13 years for that purchase to find itself at the top of the priority list.  Now the agony of waiting for delivery on Thursday seems longer than the 13 years we've been sleeping in that bed!  We're at the breaking point.  Too many morning of stiff necks and sore backs.  It had to go!  But could they make shopping for a mattress any more annoying?  Seriously. 


This week:


-Should I even try to top last weeks mileage?  Or just hope to keep it at that level?  I got registered for the race.  Maybe the focus this week will be on a few quality tempo runs.  I commit to at least one day of speed training.  That's my official goal.  
- Stay within my household budget for the week.  That's so boring, I can barely bring myself to type it.  But I should really try to do it.  It would be really exceptional of me.  
-Plan our primary activity.  (Or should I cancel it?  It's one or the other!  Time to decide)

Sarah

 last week:
* made it to yoga twice! Even got to go with CZ one day (she said she could go at 6am since she didn't have class until noon and could go back home and sleep. ha!)
* lots of Rooftop Concert Series planning meetings - finally got the contract confirming that The Neon Trees will come!
* went skiing with Scott and the boys on Friday

this week:
* June's birthday party today! Make all her 4-year-old dreams come true.
* plan east coast trip (do you think it could really happen this week?)
* put up an online store to sell Lower Lights t-shirts





That's a wrap sisters!  Another successful week of keeping in touch!  It remains a highlight, so despite the effort, and the regrets over lame pictures, I think it's still totally worth it!!  Love to you all.  

We visited Spring.

I think I've mentioned that we got to host Ie Li and her three little ones last week.  It was adorable.  She is up to her ears in a nursing baby, a three-year old boy (!), and her very own nearly 5 year-old drama queen.  I love watching her in the middle of that three ring circus.  It reminds me of my days gone by.  They are some of my happiest memories to-date.  But maybe mostly in retrospect :)

While they were here, we ventured over to see what Spring had done at Duke Gardens.  When we were pulling up, Jane said, "Dad, are we going to destroy this place, because it's Duke?".  The rivalry around here is pretty serious.  So much for not taking sides!

No, we did not destroy that place, instead we were blown away by it's beauty.  We are very sorry that our Tar Heels had to lose to the Blue Devils while our company was in town, but we are not sorry that Duke has such a lovely garden so close to our home!

 

 

Jane wore a new spring skirt to the gardens.  For more details, read HERE.

It was a lovely afternoon.  We followed it up by stopping at our favorite frozen yogurt spot, which is run by a group of Korean business men.  We love telling them about how we just moved here from Korea.  It's fun every time.  

We'll have to go back to the gardens again soon.  The tulips were all sprouted, but not in bloom.  It will be spectacular when they are.  Wanna come with us?!  

Also, don't forget to check out this weeks sister update over at my sister Sarah's blog.  Someone went ice fishing last week...that fact alone is worth a CLICK. 

Long Live Springbreak

You know when bad hair is affecting your soul like a cancer, eating you alive on the inside?  If that sounds dramatic, then you don't know what I'm talking about.  Because if you know what I'm talking about, you can feel my pain!  That's where I was.  I was living in the realm where everyday I felt like I needed to wear a baseball cap just to cover up all the craziness that was my hair.  Only problem, I don't own a baseball cap, and I think it went out of style for girls to wear them, somewhere around the time that I last wore my overalls.  I told Darin on Tuesday night that I felt like it was Christmas Eve.  He told me he could hear the violins playing in the background, as in, he thought I was being overly dramatic and self-pitying.  Sometimes, it's really hard to live with a boy.  Especially one who does not understand what a hair crisis is.

Cancer is in remission!  I have a new lease on my hair life.  I have a solid two months until the vicious cycle will undoubtably repeat itself, all over again.

If you're curious if I had anything else on my agenda last week, click over to my littlest sister Christine's blog.  She's hosting the sister update this week.  We're trying to make it a regular and rotating weekly (?) feature.  I love catching glimpses of my sisters, and hearing a bit about what they do in their regular lives.

In other news, Darin's on spring break.  Yesterday that looked like us going to the gym first thing in the morning, followed by breakfast at Elmo's Diner (because Chilaquiles and sweet potato pancakes were the weekly specials!), followed by some belated birthday shopping and finally culminated in an afternoon matinee of Adjustment Bureau.  The kids don't have spring break until the very last week of April!  Lucky me, I get to have two :)

Oh thank goodness!

There was a Daddy Daughter Dance scheduled for Friday night, February 25th.  There was excitement enough to sell in bottles and share with the world!  There was a daddy who was out of town at a conference and didn't think he was going to make it home in time to date his daughters!  There were some daughters who were sad beyond any sadness they had yet known in this lifetime.  There was a phone call, at 11am on Friday morning, their date was done early, and already in his car driving home to the rescue!  He would be there by 5pm!

There were some girls who realized they have the best dad in the entire world!

The End.

It's a fun tradition

Every year, year after year, Darin's birthday is the day after Jane and Ruby's (wink!).  Every year since we have photographic evidence, I make him a homemade Red Velvet cake, and he poses with his cake and his kids on his birthday.  It's a fun tradition.  But this year, on his birthday, he had to head to D.C. to participate in a week long conference.  There was no time for the cake photo, or even for the cake!  Thank goodness we found time to squeeze it in on Sunday night before his official birthday week came to an end...

2011

In the event you are in the mood for a glimpse at the years past, might I refer you to a post from a few years back, where you can see how far we've come!  CLICK.

Maybe I can't resist a repost of at least one picture:

2010

Happy Birthday Darin!


P.S.  Want to see what my sisters have been up to lately?  Click HERE...

Falling behind and catching up.

February passes like a blink of an eye.  So do the years that my girls have been alive!  It's sad and happy, all wrapped into one.  They turned 6!  I tried to talk them out of a birthday party.  I wasn't really feeling it this year, but that was impossible.  It was two, way too enthusiastic girls, against one totally unenthused mom.  I lost.  We had a grand party!

There was dancing:

Cupcake decorating:

A game of pinning hearts onto stuff:

Of course there was some crafting:

And my favorite part of all was the beautiful weather and the outdoor Fairy Scavenger hunt:

The girls, all 10 of them, were full of smiles and giggles.  I took that to mean that everyone had fun, and we did a good job.  I thought I was keeping it all simple and manageable (and I really was), but still, I was completely exhausted by the end of the weekend.

Of course, the next day was their "real" birthday.  So there were more presents:

More jubilation:

They got their long over due GIRL bikes:

And there was the requisite blowing out of the candles, on the cake, on the birthday, on the day, and on the weekend.  Phew.

Ruby kept telling Jane that they could not consider themselves 6 until they blew out the candles on their cake, which technically did not happen until fairly late Sunday night.  It might have been my preference, that if Ruby's theory was correct, that they never had blown out the candles. 6 sounds old.  I'm pretty sure when Henry turned 6 I was ready to hand him the keys to my car.  These girls, how come they have to grow up so fast?!  They bring a sparkle to my life, which I will tragically miss when they are gone.

They aren't going anywhere!  I'm going to secretly follow them, and their sparkle around this world, wherever they go.  I think they'll love that!

Happy Birthday sweet Ladies.  I love you so.  

They really are six.

Without any consideration for their poor mother, they went and turned 6 this weekend!  Need I say more?!  

I will.  Soon.  Just let me go sleep for a few days.  It was a B U S Y weekend.

Some Valentine's Day Love

If you want to see some Valentine's Day *love* MOM style, check out what the girls got to wear to school today, HERE.

If you want a delicious treat for FHE tonight, follow the link HERE.  Or here.

But do not follow that link above if you want skinny thighs or to look cute in your swimming suit in the next few months.  I'm just saying, it won't help!

If you want to know how proud I am of my boys for being good students, then observe the pictures below:

George at the Honor Roll assembly.

Henry was there too.  Super excited as per usual.  I keep trying to tell him it's not always going to be as easy as it is right now to get straight A's, so he should really enjoy it while he can.

Do you think he is listening to me?

If you want to read about how George won the Pine Wood Derby, well then, let me just tell you, George won the Pine Wood Derby!!

Here I am, being super excited for him!  It was his first time getting to participate in a Pine Wood Derby. That's a really big deal in the world of Cub Scouting!

Of course, huge kuddos go out to Darin for helping both of his young Cub Scouts earn a "Fastest Car" award.  Honestly Darin doesn't really know how he's managed it.  He barely owns any tools, and the random collection of saws that we now have, have been purchased specifically to trim the trunk of the Christmas tree, and to be used in his effort to help his sons not be embarrassed at Pine Wood Derby.  It is an incredibly successful collection of random saws.   Darin could never build another Pine Wood Derby car for the rest of his life, and his sons will forever be indebted to him for helping them get their big wins!  Way to go Darin.

Cutest George on the block.  

I just found them.

Rachel downloaded all of her wedding photos to my computer when she was here last month.  It's so silly, but I only found them tonight.  And I'm pretty sure I've looked for them before tonight.

These ladies are breaking my heart in this photo.  So darling.  But one thing is funny, they are in this phase where they hate to smile with their teeth showing.  They think it looks bad.  I just wonder sometimes where they get their ideas from!

And I never saw this one until tonight either!  They look smashing.  And like they might grow up to be heart breakers.

It is possible for me to love these four any more than I do right now?!

Ruby said...

Tonight during dinner Ruby said to me:

"Mom, when I grow up, I want to be famous.  Is that something that you sign up for?"

Note to self about what should be on the agenda for this coming week:

• Make sure I am teaching my daughters that it's not important if they are famous or not. 

Monday was sweet and delicious in D.C.

Monday in D.C. was delicious because we put the "diet" aside and found ourselves in line at the Bethesda branch of Georgetown Cupcakes!  Darin didn't think a stop at Georgetown Cupcake on a busy holiday was really necessary.  He says he's sort of over the cupcake craze.  But I'm not.  I'm still busy sampling any and all cupcakes I hear generate a buzz, from West Coast to East Coast.  I've been hearing about Georgetown Cupcakes for a while now, it was time for a sample.

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

How Darin didn't see Georgetown Cupcake as a necessary stop on our Monday agenda is still hard for me to understand!  Though we all feel the need for a fresh sample from Sprinkles (it's been a while since our last sampling), most of us were prepared to crown Georgetown Cupcakes as the new favorite!  Go try some the next time you're in Bethesda.  The line is much shorter than the line in Georgetown.  Hot tip from me to you. 

But that's not really what made Monday sweet (it's what made Monday delicious).  What made Monday sweet was the brief drive-through tour of some of my favorite childhood memories in Kensington, MD.  We drove past our Kensington house:

I get a little teary eyed just looking at the picture now.  So many amazing memories, mostly all full of happiness, all taking place within the walls of this house.  On many days, I still feel like the little girl who lives there.

After driving by it several times, we went down the street to the grounds of the Washington D.C. temple and visitor center.

A few moments of wonder that I actually grew up on the same street as this most beautiful structure...   Then, after walking through the Visitor Center, I think I actually had my kids impressed that I have had a pretty cool life! 

Darin's choice of how to spend the remainder of our MLK day was to visit Arlington National Cemetery.

It was over cast and freezing.  But none of us had ever been before, making it a necessary stop.  It felt very significant to be there on this particular Monday.

Our kids learning about the Eternal Flame at the Kennedy grave site. 

The boys were fascinated by the Tomb of the Unknowns.  They endured a long twenty or so minutes in the freezing, just to see the changing of the guard:

And finally, our photog, who makes it all possible:  

Martin Luther King Day might have just become my new favorite holiday.  A more perfect weekend away couldn't have been conceived of.  Sorry to my sibs that there aren't more photos of our fun times together.  In those moments it feels artificial to pull out the camera, but to be sure, those are some of my most favorite moments.  Thanks for a fabulous weekend.