A pretty good compilation of pictures and stories and quotes

Dear Jessa ~

Baby 3.0 is doing great.  He's moving around and is now about the weight of an eggplant.  (Approx. 2 1/4 pounds.)  I had a midwife appointment on Monday and she says everything is progressing right on track.  Hooray!  I'm feeling pretty great.  I'm not nearly as tired as I once was.  I'm not sick at all.  I'm not even catching every cold this time around like I did with the girls.  But I do have So Much Mucous All The Time.  (TMI?)  I seriously blow my nose at least once an hour, but as often as every 5-10 mins.  The skin just below my nose is being rubbed raw now.  I hates it.  This is by far my #1 pregnancy complaint this pregnancy.  Ugh.  But other than that, I really am feeling pretty great.  Which is really nice.  :)

I taught Joy School this week.  The Joy of Trust and Confidence.  It was filled with talking about all the things the girls do well and getting them to try new things and building up confidence in trying.  That it's ok if we make mistakes.  What's important is that we're willing to try.  So now whenever Kessa doesn't want to try something, we just ask her, "What does the train say?" and she'll grin and say, "I think I can!  I think I can!" and then she'll try whatever it is.  It's fantastic.

We took the girls to the dentist for their 6-month checkup.  Abby did great.  She just watched Kessa do things (and Kessa was fantastic, too) and then wanted to do them as well.  I like that they let me bring them both at the same time so we can do that.  And she had the hygienists totally charmed.  Afterwards they both got toy rings, which they love.  But then Kessa promptly lost hers.  Twice. In the same day.  We never found it after the 2nd loss, though.  And whenever she sees Abby's ring, she gets sad all over again.  Which has given us the opportunity to talk about taking care of our stuff.  What could you do with it next time if you wanted to take it off to make sure you don't lose it?  So that's been a good positive twist.  Downfalls: Abby officially needs to be weaned from her binkie and Kessa has two cavities she needs to have filled.  [sigh]  But with teeth like her parents' have, it's not a huge surprise.  Oh, she also has one more loose tooth!  But we knew that before we went to the dentist.  And her one permanent tooth is coming in nicely.



Thursday was our stake RS birthday dinner.  So BJ had the girls and had to feed them dinner.  Kessa requested German pancakes, so that's what he made.  Hah!  But the next night he went out to dinner with the other presenters for a conference he was presenting for (I'll let him tell you more about that) so it was just the girls and I for dinner.  They requested German pancakes again and... I acquiesced to their request.  But I got fancier and bought berries to put on and added whipped cream.  Kessa saw the whipped cream and said, "What's that on the table, mommy?"  "That's whipped cream."  "Why do we have whipped cream on the table?"  "Well, I thought since it's girls' night tonight that we could do something special with our dinner."  "Why are we doing something special?"  "Well, if you don't want to do something special I could just put it in the fridge."  ".... uhh... no!  I want whipped cream!"

The next day was Utah Code Camp, so BJ was gone all morning and afternoon.  It was Agricultural Days at Thanksgiving Point, and we did just get a membership, so I called up Melanie (whose husband was also presenting at that nerdy conference) and we went out to that.  I was skeptical at first because it was So Windy.  It was in the 50s, which normally feels nice, but the wind chill made it super cold.  Kessa was immediately like, "I don't want to be outside, Mommy!"  Of course, it was at Farm Country, so it was mostly outside.  Goody.  So I told her that we would give it a try, but if it was too cold, we could leave.  Thankfully they had several things inside, too.  So we got a good mix.  And ended up staying there for 2+ hours.  The girls had a blast.  They made occupational hats (Kessa made a weatherman and Abby a forest ranger).  Kessa made a living necklace (dirt, water and wheat berries inside a clear plastic shell that hangs from string), a bracelet from dyed wool and pony beads, pancakes, and butter.  She started to sprout a bean, ran a relay, rode a pony, and got to walk around and look at all the farm animals.  She also did a scavenger hunt where she learned about all sorts of everyday items and how they come from agriculture.  (Apparently plastic bags use animal fat to make them semi-slippery.  Who knew?)  It turned out to be a great outing.  Heck, we came home, ate lunch, put Abby to bed, then I was so exhausted that I handed Kessa the iPad and I took what ended up being a 2-hour nap!




From BJ about Utah Code Camp:

On Saturday, I went up to a programmer's conference held up at the University of Utah. It was free to attend, so there were a *lot* of people there. They apparently had 1200+ people register, and at least 850 actually showed up. One of our friends in the neighborhood has attended the last few years, and encouraged me to come this year, so I did. 

My friend also encouraged me to submit a proposal for presenting a session. I did so. They get a lot of proposals, so in the weeks before the conference, they let attendees vote on which topics they'd like to see presented. Mine ended up being the 2nd-voted session out of 120 proposed, so I ended up presenting there. (I talked about Git, which is some popular and free software for programmers, used to keep track of versions of their code as they're developing.) 

The conference was pretty good. I ended up presenting twice, as one of the other presenters dropped out the night before and they figured there might be more demand than could fit in one of my sessions. I would guess that the first session had ~80 people, and the second one had 20. It was received quite well, I think. It's hard to know how beginner/advanced your audience will be, and there will always be people who don't quite fit the target audience, but I think most people got something out of it. 

I attended other people's sessions too, of course. As it was an volunteer conference (speakers were not paid), some of the presenters didn't have lots of prior speaking experience, and sometimes it showed. But there were a couple sessions that I found useful, so overall it was a good experience.

Today is Nick's birthday, so we had dinner at your parents' again.  Kessa made Nick a card (that folded up into an envelope), then made him a puzzle coupon.  We cut out pictures of Legos that he had to stack together in the right order to spell out the coupon, offering him the chance to come play Legos with her sometime.  Isn't she just so sweet?  :D  She was so excited about that present.  "Nick is going to love it!"

Random stuff from Facebook:
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I know I'm late to the game here, but it just really hit me that my kids will grow up without knowing Pluto as a planet.

Will they even know Pluto? Will they learn about it as Pluto, the former planet? The demoted planet?

I think I'm finally mourning Pluto properly.
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Perhaps I should wait two hours to post this, but I'm ridiculously proud of myself.

I just got Abby to fall asleep at nap time *without her binkie*. I think I pretty much win at life.
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Bubble machine in a warm (ish) breeze = two very happy kids. #bestideaever #sorryneighborsforanybubbleresidue


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Abby wanted to wear Kessa's rain coat and asked me to make it rain. I complied with a water spray bottle.
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Abby is on a mission to teach me that I do, in fact, really want a boy. Seriously. How did she get so much attitude already? I thought the turning around, huffing, and folding her arms while screaming, "No!" was reserved until tweens. #practicingpatience #justasknicely
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Since when does 51° feel so blasted hot? I went out and cleaned up a lot of my flowerbeds and I'm sweating! So hot!
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Turns out, peanut butter on sourdough isn't very good. In good news, my Joy School girls didn't seem to mind.
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More on that Abby attitude above.  Holy cow.  That girl only has two settings: adorably charming and screeching mandrake/pterodactyl.  And it can flip back and forth without any notice.  There is no in between.  The other afternoon she was mad about EVERYTHING.  And, I think, just wanted to be contradictory.  Actual conversation:

BANANA!
Do you want a banana?
NO BANANA!
Ok.  Then no banana.  [start to walk away]
BANANA!!!!!!!
repeat ad nauseum

And repeat that conversation, replacing banana with anything she might possibly want.  Or not want. Legos.  Baby Signing Time.  Cereal.  Water.  Nap.  Books.  You name it.  Thankfully I had nothing else planned that day, so I was able to use it as a learning experience for her.  Basically, "Use your kind voice/words to get something.  Screaming will not get you what you want."  And I was able to keep my cool like this for hours.  Which was somewhat of a miracle in and of itself.  My favorite was when I'd ask her to use her Kind Voice and she'd scream, "No!  Kind words!"  "Yes, use your kind words, too."  "KIND VOICE!"  "Yes.  Kind words and kind voice."  [SCREAM!!!!]  There really was zero logic to it at all.  She just wanted to be mad.  I decided to let her have whatever it was she asked for the first time, within reason, so long as she asked nicely.  It took an hour or two, but she managed to get the iPad to watch a show.  And was happy for a little while.  Incredibly adorably charming.  Until Kessa decided it was her turn for the iPad.  Then it started all over.  But she hasn't had a day that bad since, so  hopefully she learned a little from it.  [crosses fingers]


And now, two cute pictures of Abby so you can see the adorably, sweet, charming toddler:

At the park, about to go down the slide.

She put on Kessa's raincoat and wanted it to rain.
So I sprayed her with the water bottle sprayer thingy.
She loved it.

Kiddisms

• Talking about what to have for dinner. Kessa: If we went to the store and buyed macaroni and cheese, we could have macaroni and cheese!
• Me: That's why we do it every single time.
  Kessa: What does “single” mean?
  Me: … it means “one.” So… ummm… every one time. Uhhh… It means every time we do it.
  
  Why is English so full of sayings and phrases that don't break down to easy explanation to four-year olds? I run into this every time I say something like, “The alarm went off.” “No mommy, the alarm went on!” Gooood point.
• We read the story of Moses and parting the Red Sea before bed one night.  Then we talked about how it was a miracle.  This was part of Kessa's prayer that night: "And please do a miracle if our house burns down and get us out safe."
• Kessa: When Abby is really tall, and isn't married yet, will her name still be Abby?
  Me: Yes it will.
  Kessa, with a screwed up face: Whaaat?! But that's not a good name for a grown up!
  Me: Well, what if she goes by Abigail? Would that be a better grown up name?
  Kessa thought for a minute, then: No.
• Kessa was sitting next to me as I was doing Abby's hair. I sprayed it with water and got a little on Kessa. “Mommy, it's ok if you freckle me a little.”
• Me: Did you wake up happy?
  Abby: No, sleepy.
• Me: Do you know what's special about today?
  Kessa: Uh-huh. It's Sunday!
  Me: Yup. Do you know what else is special about today? Something that only happens once a year?
  Kessa: Um… Daddy's coming to church?
  (I swear he comes every week!  It would have made more sense had she said Mommy, considering I'm only at sacrament with them maybe half the time the last few months, due to ward conferences.  But I'm done with those now!)