We're gonna miss you while you're gone

Hey folks! I'm blogging again! Remember how awhile ago I used to blog every week because BJ's sister Jessa was on an LDS mission, and my blog was my letter to her? Well lucky for you, his youngest sister, Teresa (hereby known as Resa) just left to go on a mission to Houston, Texas. She's currently in Mexico City learning Spanish and learning how to be a missionary. So for the next year and a half, most of my blogs will be addressed to her. I'm hoping to find a new groove, though, so you can actually enjoy reading my blogs instead of being buried in every detail of my week. Hopefully that'll happen... feedback is welcome. :)

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Dear Resa ~

You're in Mexico! And don't worry, we're missing you while you're gone. :D  How is your Spanish? Do you feel like you already have a good handle on it? Or are you totally overwhelmed by how much you don't yet know? I think it's awesome that you're learning Spanish. Though I feel like my future is going to be filled even more with you and BJ talking so I can't understand you. Maybe I should switch from learning Norwegian to learning Spanish... But then how will I learn awesome phrases like, "The wolf is eating me" or "It's raining men"? Maybe they would teach awesome things like that in Spanish, too... But then how could I justify a cruise to Norway if I don't learn Norwegian like I promised my grandma? So Many Hard Choices!!! ;)

Let's see... what things from this week would you care about...

Kessa put on a concert for us the other night. She sang 3 or 4 songs from Frozen while reading the lyrics in BJ's piano book. I wish you could watch videos... I'd upload one for you. Maybe I should make a video compilation for when you get home of all the videos you miss. That would be awfully nice of me. (Uhhh... we'll see if that actually happens. Don't hold your breath.)

There was a lunar eclipse of a super moon (which means it's 14% bigger than a normal full moon)! Did you get to see it? We let the girls stay up and they loved it! (Well, I think they mostly loved playing with the friends that came over to look through the telescope.)

Kessa continues to learn to rollerskate. Her newest learning technique? Pushing the stroller! (Don't be deceived, this picture makes her look like she's going waaay faster than she really is.)

And because you deserve a cat picture, we have a new pianist at our house! Meow!

And just because I got this adorable picture of Abby when we went to the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point for a nature walk for Joy School...

And now the part I know you actually care about. Kiddisms!!!! (And since this is the first time in a looooooooong time I've blogged these, I'll go back in time awhile. So you may have heard some of these before.)

• Me: Kitty. Kitty. Kittykittykittykitty.
  Abby: Mommy don't say that. That is not a word.
  Me: Kitty isn't a word?
  Abby: No it is not.
  Me: Kitty is too a word
  Abby: No, it is not a word!
  Me: Kitty is a word. I think you're tricking me.
  Abby: I'm not tricking. I'm teaching you to not say funny things.
• Abby is playing by herself, singing Let it Go, when partway through she stops and says, “Don't sing that song.” So she stopped, started talking to herself for a couple of minutes, then sang the last line of the song. And is now back to talking to herself. 
• Abby: Hey baby, I know you have short hair and long hair, but I don't have any batteries.  (Just in case you needed any awesome pick up lines for when you get home.)
• Things I never expected to say to my children include: “Write 5 words, and then you may go die.”
• Abby: When I am a kitty, I'm going to buy whiskers, a tail, and fur.
• Abby: Do you want Aurora or not Aurora.
  Me: Not Aurora.
  Abby: Well, then you will die to Jesus.
• Abby: My pretty fingernails really want to not fall off.
• Text from BJ: "Milestone: Peter can now carry a yarn “snowball” while pulling himself up onto an open toilet, and then throw the snowball into the toilet. And then reach into the toilet and splash around trying to reach for it."
• Kessa: Do you like Christmas more or Halloween more? I kind of like Halloween because of the candy, but I like Christmas more because I think of God more. And God is way better than candy.
• Me: Then why did you need my help?
  Abby: Because I wanted to do it by myself.
• Abby: Mommy, this rice is hot. That's because you're hot, Mommy!
• Kessa: I would never lie because I'm a princess. Princesses do not tell lies!
• In prayers:
  Abby: Thank you I died. [pause] Because I didn't.
  Kessa: Thank you that we got to Grandma's before the sun went down.
  Tamra: Help us to be nice to Grandma and Grandpa Lovell. And to be polite. And to not be rude to anyone.  (Note: this is way back from July when we had my sister's kids here.)
• Abby has gymnastics today. “Oh! I'll have to put on my leilatard! Just like when I'm at Leila's house!”
• I just asked Kessa to be quick to obey like Nephi.
  Abby: I want a fruit snack like Laman and Lemuel!
• Very common conversation lately.
  Me: Abby, did you have a good nap? Did you have good dreams?
  Abby: Yeah, I did.
  Me: What were your dreams about?
  Abby: Aurora.
  Though, sometimes the princess will change. Today it was Cinderella.
• Kessa: Those are falling awake machines, goldfish [crackers] are!
• Kessa: If you spell goats G-O-A-T-S and then take off the G, and crumble it up and throw it away, you spell oats!
• Abby: Mommy, I'm scared.
  Me: What are you scared of?
  Abby, screeching: I'm not scared of!   (Editor's note: This is VERY stereotypical of Abby's completely illogical tantrums.)
• Abby, wearing wings, “Mommy, I'm too old to fly.”
• Abby: I smell thunder!
  Later: I don't see any more thunder. 
• Abby just flushed her panties down the potty. Now she's distraught because her panties won't come back.

Ok, that's probably enough. Hope you got at least a good smile, if not a chuckle out of those. :)

Oh! And Kessa wrote you a card. We're putting it in the mail tomorrow (cross your fingers) so hopefully you'll get it while you're there! Tell us when you do, so we know how long it takes to mail you things.

Hugs! Can't wait to hear all about your first week!
<3 Tianna and Co.

Mmmm... Chocolate...

Abby turned three years old 3 months ago today. Perhaps I should blog about her party? Because it was awesome.

Ever since we bought Frozen soon after it came out, both of my girls have been obsessed. They sing the songs. They act out scenes. (The favorite being at the beginning with Anna waking up Elsa. They have entitled it, "Wake up, wake up, wake up!" and request playing it often. It's sometimes fun to be Elsa because I get to push my kids off the couch and tell them to go play by themselves... and they laugh!) So when my cousin's daughters, Aubree and Brinnan, posted their Halloween costumes of Elsa and Anna (homemade costumes, I might add!) and said they do parties... well, the party practically planned itself.

I saw this snowflake cupcake cake on Pinterest and decided it would be fun and easy. Once Abby saw it, she was in love. She still asks me to show her "her cake" on my phone.

We colored Frozen pictures while we waited for everyone to come. Once everyone showed up, we headed down to the basement to play Pin the Nose on Olaf and Freeze Dancing.

But then, to everyone's surprise (at least the under-6 crowd), Anna showed up in our basement! My girls were rather confused about it.

She explained that Elsa had been captured by the snow monster. They had to go help save her! So they all trooped upstairs, found a pile of "snowballs" (fuzzy yarn wrapped around wiffle balls), and threw them at the snow monster until they defeated him and saved Elsa.

Then we posed for pictures, ate candy/cupcakes, and just played with Elsa and Anna. Not bad for a 3-year old birthday party!

It was super fun having double Elsa and Anna's. Abby still talks about "2 Elsa's and 2 Anna's at our house!"

Peter was here, too. He was just too busy learning from Papa Lovell that he loves water to pay attention to anything. (Hah! Water. Appropriate for a Frozen party...)

All photo credit goes to Travis Lovell Photography.

Input requested

BJ had me play with Day One (the journaling app he works for) tonight. I ended up writing a stream-of-conscious bug report as a journal entry. It was late and I seemed to have lost any filters. It was really fun. BJ thought it entertaining as well. 

Afterwards BJ mentioned, "Sometimes I forget that I first got to know you through your writing." It made me realize how much I miss writing. And blogging. And how I seem to have lost some of my zest for life when I stopped writing. 

So, if anyone still reads this, what would you like to hear about? Kids? Life? Kiddisms? Old stories? Ramblings? Stream of consciousness on random topics? Opinions? Help a girl out!

Fasting when you can't fast

Today being Fast Sunday (In the LDS church, we set aside the first Sunday of every month to fast for whatever needs we stand in need of), I've been thinking of fasting as I got ready for church. I realized that in the last six and a half years I have been married, I haven't been able to fast for over four and a half of them. That's over 2/3 of my marriage I've been unable to fast!

As we've been teaching Kessa why Daddy doesn't eat these mornings, we've simplified it to this: When you need something from Heavenly Father, you pray and ask for it. But sometimes you really need something. You need or want it so much that you're willing to do even more than a simple prayer to show Heavenly Father how much it means to you. That's what fasting does.

This powerful tool I have largely not utilized over the past 6 and a half years due to pregnancy and nursing. But several months ago, while explaining to Kessa why we fast, I realized that was silly. Heavenly Father made my body. He understands that during pregnancy and nursing, my body needs extra nutrients and cannot go as long without eating. He made me that way! I cannot believe that he would expect me to forego the blessings that come from fasting simply because I am also nourishing a child.

It got me thinking. If fasting is a way of sacrificing something in order to show God my greater desire for blessings, why couldn't I sacrifice something else?

So I have. For the last several months I start my fast with something different. I usually start by thinking, "What is it I really want right now that I could live without, but would be a sacrifice?" Sometimes it's a particular book I'm reading (especially if I'm at a climax). Sometimes it's sugar. Sometimes it's anything other than simple, mostly-bland-but-still-nutritious food. This approach is completely customizable to the person.

Now, the scriptures specifically talk about fasting from food and drink, so I am not suggesting that everyone deviate from that. When I am able to properly fast, I do. But I think too often I've thought of pregnancy and nursing or being sick as a "Get out of Fast Sunday Free" pass. I have rarely stopped to think of the blessings I am joyfully missing out of. So now during the times that I am not capable of a participating in a full fast, I believe that Heavenly Father accepts what I can do. I am satisfied with this work-around.

Something new

So, as most of you have realized, for the last year and a half, I've been writing my blog as a letter to BJ's sister, Jessa. She has been serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cambodia. Not wanting to miss a single detail, I sent her all the details. But as much as I love the details, I fear I may have lost much of my readership. Most people don't want to know the nitty gritty details of my life. Plus, I've just felt like it's time for my blog to take a different direction for awhile. So as soon as Jessa was done, I stopped blogging. Unsure what to write, I just stopped writing. For a month and a half.

So today starts something new. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I guess we'll find out together as it unfolds.

For today, I'll catch you up on all the missed kiddisms (with a few adult guest appearances)...

• Kessa: do you know why I love Papa [Lovell] so much and why he loves me so much? Because he has that little thing [flashlight] that when you put it on my finger, it turns my finger red. 
• Me: It would take me more than my whole life to travel to the sun.
  Kessa: But not the firemen. Because they are superfast!
• Abby: I'm two and Kessa's five, so I'm old.
• Kessa: When can I get my ears punished? (She meant pierced.)
• Abby (age 2.5) spent a few minutes examining her mouth in the mirror. Then she told me, “This tooth! It fell out. I need to get my tooth pillow.” I laughed and asked, “Your tooth fell out and you need to put it in your tooth pillow?” She very seriously looked straight in my eyes and said, “I need money.”
• Kessa: If we all like green like you do, then we'd all have magic in our eyes!
• Kessa wearing her Elsa dress walks into my bedroom, alone, and starts saying very earnestly to herself, “Don't. Feel. Don't feel! Don't feel.”
• Kessa: Abby, you have to sleep.
  Abby: I can't; my hands are full. 
• Resa: So, I was thinking about this the other day. I'm going to be the one to go to all of my siblings' funerals. If we all live to be the age of… old. I'm going to go to all of them! BJ, you're not going to go to anyone's except maybe Nick's. But let's be honest. We're all going to go to Nick's.
• Abby: Oh! Look! My shadow is happy!
• Me: How do we earn points?
  Kessa: Wellllllll… that's a very good answer. 
• BJ: I wouldn't get to wear my Transformer's dress.
• Me: What do you want for lunch?
  Abby: peanut butter
  Me: Do you want it on toast?
  Abby: No
  Me: On bread?
  Abby: No
  Me: What do you want it on?
  Abby: I want peanut butter.
  Me: Ok. But what do you want to eat your peanut butter on?
  Abby: Because I don't like it.
  Me: You don't like peanut butter?
  Abby: No
  [30-second pause]
  Abby: I want peanut butter.
  Me: Do you just want to just eat it with a spoon?
  Abby: No. 
• Abby, speaking to her stuffed monkey: Monkey Pearl Homer. Stop. Stop! STOP! Oh, Monkey… sorry. Do you want to cuddle? You need to stop yelling. Ohhhh. Do you need to change your diaper? Oh, is it owie? Sorry.
• BJ, telling to story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf: Sheep just aren't all the interesting. They don't play games or tell jokes or make you pizza.
• Abby: Let's go get oatmeal!
  BJ: Just a second, I'm kissing mommy.
  Abby: And hug! And tickle!
  [BJ tickles me.]
  Meanwhile, Abby: Sorry. Sorry, Mommy. Sorry. Sorry about that. 
• Kessa found a camera and is going around taking pictures. She was taking one of Peter and I. "Don't smile so big, mom—your eyes are shutting." Hah!
• BJ: Now that you’re getting your big teeth, you need to take care of them because you’ll never lose them.
  Kessa: Yes I will! I met a lady that was really, really old… (then she got distracted, but I think we can all see where this was going…)
• Kessa's homework today [Nov 17] is to write numbers as high as she can. Try to get to at least 20.
  She did that easily.
  I asked if she could get higher.
  She said she could get to 100. I challenged her to do it.
  So she hid the paper from me and wrote by 10s up to 100. 😂
• Kessa was coming up with words that start with N for homework. Without really thinking I told her to think of letters, colors, or animals. She asked what letter I was thinking of. And then I realized I had meant to say number. So I said, “Oh, that was silly. Letters aren't really words. I guess we could say N, but that's not a word.” She retorted, “But N starts with 'e'. Eh-n.”
  Touché.
• We’re trying to keep the kids off screen time during the morning. This morning Abby had been asking to watch a show and I kept telling her, “In the afternoon.” At one point I was out on my computer and BJ was in the bedroom getting ready when Abby came out and told me to go talk to Daddy. When she wants something, she’s very insistent about it, so I decided to placate her and went in to talk to him. Next thing I know, she’s shutting my bedroom door—with her on the outside. Now, I can add two and two better than my two-year old, and just laughed, telling BJ what I suspected.
  
  I gave her a few minutes, then went back out to find her hiding behind the blue hand chair (not very effectively), on the iPad. I put my hands on my hips and said, “Abby, what are you doing?” She looked up, wide-eyed, and said, “Mommy, go talk to Daddy!” When I didn’t move, she grabbed the iPad, pulled it behind the chair and exclaimed, “Mommy! Go!”


  
  I admit, I left and let her watch. It was too hard to not laugh in front of her.

And since he can't talk, I'll just remind you all that this dude is awesome:

The basement!

Jessa ~

This blog feels weird. It's the last letter of your mission. That alone is weird. But... I still have two more Sundays before I see you. So it's not really the last letter. I feel kind of like I'm in limbo here. Which, I'm sure, is nothing compared to what you're dealing with. So for your sake, let's just forget we even talked about this and just go on as if it's just another normal week, shall we?

So, Mondays are pretty rough. BJ has a meeting at the office on Mondays, which means I can't take advantage of the normal work-from-home perks, like leaving sleeping kids while I take Kessa to and from school. On a normal day, that would mean I take Kessa to school at 12:30, come home and put Abby down for a nap, then wake her up around 3:15 to pick up Kessa from school. That's not horrible. Though she often sleeps till 4 or 5, so waking her up does make me cringe. Especially as she's a royal grump when she doesn't get enough sleep. But Mondays are early out, which means I'd have to wake her up at 2:15, giving Abby only an hour and a half nap. I have dreaded this many times, but have always managed to work around it somehow. This Monday I didn't have a way around it.

Then realized that because I am brilliant, I scheduled Visiting Teaching during nap time on Monday. Brilliant, I say. [sigh] I normally schedule during nap time so I don't have to drag all my kids to the visits and keep them happy and quiet for an hour and a half or so. Normally it works great. Not when BJ isn't home, though. I frantically thought through all of my neighbors, trying to figure out who could come to my house during all of nap time. The one person I thought of already had plans. And then it hit me. Chelsea! She wasn't a neighbor, but she's often told me that she's willing to help however I need her. So I asked her, and she agreed! Not only did I get to VT without kids, but I also got to pick up Kessa without waking up Abby. Awesome.

To top it off, we decided to make this a regular thing. She'll come watch the kids every Monday so I can pick up Kessa and maybe run some errands, and then I'll teach her how to cook some of my recipes. Win-win! Plus, then I'll get time to get to know Chelsea better, which makes this a win-win-win. Mondays suddenly just went from awful to awesome.

At stake council recently I suggested we make a Stake Facebook group. On Sunday our stake president asked me to come in on Tuesday "to counsel [them] on a Facebook group." The whole time I was getting ready, putting on a dress, makeup, doing my hair, etc., I just kept laughing to myself that I was getting all dressed up ... to talk about Facebook.

So I told you that BJ's been tutoring Resa on math, right? Well on Wednesday one of my counselors brought her 9th grade son over and BJ spent almost 2 hours tutoring him on math. (He's going to start tutoring him weekly, even!) Then that evening Resa brought her roommate over for dinner, and then BJ tutored them on their math. He seriously spent well over 3 hours teaching math that day. When I asked him how he felt about it that night he said something like, "Honestly, it doesn't feel like a big deal at all. Just another day." I'm telling you. If we ever do end up homeschooling (which I doubt we will), he would make a much better homeschooling parent than I would. :)

Wednesday night Damian and family showed up. Late Thursday morning Kim left for a girls weekend with her sisters and mom, so we had the kids all weekend while Damian worked hard. (Except when he watched the BYU game. But that led to him staying up late to mourn their loss (both the game and the quarterback broke his leg) so he got lots more done that night. It may have evened out, time-wise.) He worked hard while I tried to balance 7 kids. The thing is, overall, the kids were all really good. Sure, there were times that I had to remind them to clean up their messes or tell them to stop fighting, but overall, they were great. But just having so many kids needing me was exhausting. My days often went something like this: Feed Peter. Walk out of his room to Kessa yelling, "Mommy! Help!" Help Kessa. Hear fighting. Go break up the fight. See Abby waddling and saying, "I made a mess." Clean up her potty accident. Realize I only had 45 mins to get Kessa ready for school and make lunch. Make lunch. Do Kessa's hair while she eats lunch. Tell her to go get her shoes on while I scarf down my lunch. Tell Lexi to put Kolter to bed. Go with Kessa to find her shoes. Calm Abby down because she's crying that she wants to come to. Rush both girls to the car. Drop Kessa off at school. Come home and put Abby to bed. Ask Lexi, Parker and Taegen to clean up the toys. Take a 10 minute break. Field questions about dinner. Etc. etc. Each thing on its own is easy enough. But just one right after another is... exhausting.

But it was all worth it! Because the basement is 99% finished! Damian is having ankle surgery next week and will be out for a few months, so he had to get as much done as possible this week. All that's left is the built-in shelving, so he's going to build those at home and bring them down another time and install them. For now, I'm not too worried about it. I just won't decorate those or bring down BJ's nerdy books just yet.

Walk-in game closet!!!

General Conference was this weekend. Normally I refuse to do any projects on Conference Saturday. I want to focus on Conference and figure I can sacrifice two Saturdays a year to building up my spirituality. But... the ox was in the proverbial mire this year with the basement. I was already stressing about focusing with 7 kids, when the apples I wanted to can came on and Travis declared Friday and Saturday his best days to can them. So we turned on conference and BJ and the kids went upstairs to watch it.

Cute story: We made bowls with candy in them and labeled them with common General Conference topics. As the kids hear those words, they get to eat a piece of candy. It helps them want to listen.
Before the first talk was over, the "Jesus" bowl was empty.

Just in case anyone doubted that we are Christian.

Meanwhile Travis, Brenda, and I canned and Damian worked on the basement. Thank goodness for live streaming and smartphones so we could all watch/listen. I definitely missed much of it though. Sunday afternoon was the only session I got fully, and that only because we went up to your parents' (Kessa got beads instead of candy there and made a conference necklace). So I'm making a goal to watch/listen/read all of them very soon. Hold me to that, k?

But we did can 47 pints of applesauce and 26 quarts of apple pie filling! Mmmm.

As an update, Kessa is doing better about fire. Still not great, but better. Damian promised her he'd install the smoke alarm while she was at school if she would promise to stay calm about them. She's done pretty well. Having her cousins distracting her all the time was a *huge* blessing. Of course, their last night here the smoke detector in her room ran low on batteries and started chirping in the middle of the night. rackafrackamurmurmurmur. But... hopefully we're on the downhill stretch.

And totally random, did you ever do the Pizza Hut Book It! program? Make a reading goal, if you make it, get a coupon for a free personal pan pizza every month. Well, apparently they just opened it up for adult alumni! AWESOME! But BJ says he didn't do it, so maybe you didn't either?

Kiddisms:

• BJ: Abby, if there is a fire, where should you go?
  Abby: Ummm… to the moon.
• Kessa, as I played games on my phone: Mommy! You shouldn't play screen time in the morning!
  
  Touché.
• Kessa: Taegen, let's play Duck, Duck, Goose. You touch my head until you say frog or goose.
• BJ read Kessa a book tonight that included a grandpa fixing a kite.
  BJ: Some grandpas are good at fixing kites. What are your grandpas good at?
  Kessa: Well, I have two grandpas. Grandpa Homer is like a farmer because he knows how to ride horses and stuff. Grandpa Lovell, well, he doesn’t really have a job. He just likes to sit around and eat apples.”

Random pics:

Building domino "temples" was high on the list of Fun Things this weekend.

As was the Saturday between-sessions picnic at the park.

Peter has almost figured out rolling over. But he still gets his arm stuck underneath him. So he just sucks on his fingers when he gets to that point. 

Also, Peter is definitely our first thumb sucker.

One cold day, Kessa requested hot chocolate and toast for lunch. It was so reminiscent of my childhood that I couldn't say no. So I had some, too. They were just so cute and having fun together.

<3 Tianna and Co.

Alice the camel has... two thumbs.

Jessa ~

So, two weeks. Can I do it? Yes. Because I'm going to go into less detail or skip entirely the things you probably don't care about at all.

Kessa's school carnival! It was largely giant bounce houses/slides. At first Kessa was nervous, but excited, but after her first ride down a giant inflatable slide, she was hooked. Abby wasn't far behind. But, while fun for them, it was kind of lame for the adults. I mean, cute watching kids go down slides and having the time of their lives, but I can see it being really boring when they get older and just do everything themselves. At least the money went to support the school. I assume. I hope.

Did I tell you about Mini Mozarts? A friend of ours in the neighborhood is doing a 45-minute, once a week class for kids 3-6 (Abby technically doesn't make the deadline because it's 3 in December and she's 3 in January, but we decided to give it a shot and so far, so good). It's just a fun music/dance kind of class in her home. Way low key, but super fun. Like, a couple of weeks ago they made ice cream by putting the ingredients inside baggies inside a giant bag of ice, and dancing around to music to shake it into ice cream. Awesome? I think so. Abby keeps talking about going to her music class where she gets to run around! It's her first ever extracurricular activity! And... she doesn't even have any curricular activities!

We went to Hale last Saturday. Season tickets were definitely one of our better monetary decisions. I've already budgeted in a monthly amount to set aside to pay for them every year. This time was She Loves Me, which was kind of like the stage production of You've Got Mail. But instead of them working at a separate bookstores, they both worked at the same perfumery. Still adorable. And funny. Teresa babysat for us. It's a lot harder with a nursing baby, so we had to run home from the play, feed him, then go out to dinner. Thankfully she worked with us.

Speaking of Resa, she's been coming over a time or two a week for BJ to give her some math tutoring. She's figuring out her math better and BJ is loving relearning all of it. He says crazy insane things like, "Tianna! I'm so excited! I learned something new tonight! I now understand why they put dividing polynomials in the curriculum where they do! It makes total sense to me now!" And I just kind of stare at him and blink a few times.  Hahaha.

The girls had their dentist appts this week. Kessa has another tiny cavity (she is our daughter, for sure). And everyone was shocked and amazed that Abby happily let them take x-rays of her teeth. Apparently that's not common at all for 2-year olds. But she wants to do what Kessa does, so she was super excited about it.

Because I'm a little insane and don't have enough on my plate (did I tell you I got 4 new primary presidencies on the same day and had to train them right about the same time that I also put on our annual training dinner for all the presidencies? Which was right before baptisms? Yeah. So glad that's over. I still feel a little overwhelmed by it, though.) I volunteered to be Kessa's room mother. Which so far sounds like I get to organize parties and convince all the parents to help out. Woo!

A neighbor texted me last week and told me the following story:

[My kids] were all sitting at the table nicely eating cereal, I went to my room for maybe 5-7 minutes to dry my hair. When I came out the kitchen floor was covered in the remainder of the bag of cereal, every last banana from the large Costco bunch I bought yesterday was open and partially eaten and all of my pots and pans were out on the back lawn having been thrown from the balcony!

Soon after she declared that she needed a girls' night. So she and I and one other friend got together one night after kids went to bed and had a girls' night! It was kind of awesome. There's a new thrift store called Tags in American Fork that has a bakery in it. So we went, bought dessert, and sat in a thrift store for like 2 hours, just talking and eating sugar. Then we went home. And it was really great.

Really, I'm just super glad I have friends here that I can do girls' nights with.  I remember one time when we lived in Orem, BJ and I went out to dinner on a date. We sat next to a table of women, clearly on a girls' night. And I remember thinking, "I don't have anyone I could do that with. All of my girl friends have moved out of state. And I don't know anyone well enough in Orem to just set something like that up with." And I was really, really sad about it. Apparently I just take a long time to really bond with people or something? I don't know. But now I know several people I would eagerly jump on a chance to girls' night with. And now I appreciate it a lot more.

Kessa has lost her 3rd and 4th teeth! The 4th was today and I got to pull it! It has been reaaaally loose for awhile now, but she really wants to lose it at school (because they get this tooth treasure chest necklace thing to put it in), so she's been really careful about what she eats and not to touch it and stuff. But today after church she was snacking on goldfish and suddenly she started crying and pointing to her mouth, so I looked inside and saw the tooth was still there, but there was blood gushing all around it. I told her we'd have to pull it, so she climbed up on the bathroom counter while I got a washcloth all wet and cold, then I reached in and pulled it out. Not that there was much pulling to do. At all. It was like it was just being held in by the teeth on either side or something and I just slid it out. She was really brave and cool about the whole thing. She isn't even super upset about not loosing it at school, because she still has 16 more teeth to lose. Plenty of opportunity.

I'm not sure what the state of the basement was last I updated you, but we now have carpet! And a sink! And a shower! And a toilet! And outlet/lightswitch plates! And vent covers! And he passed the final inspection (by the skin of his teeth, I might add, because he hadn't finished a few things quite yet, but we assured the inspector that we trusted him). Basically all that's left is a shower door, caulking, hanging doors, stair handrail, shelves, shingles on the playroom, and paint touchups. At least, that's all I can think of offhand. He's coming down this week, though, to finish as much as he can, and then either way we're going to move in because he's getting ankle surgery and will be out for a few months. And I don't want to sit with an almost-finished basement and not move in because there are still a few paint touchups left. We can deal.  BJ has already moved his office in and will probably start working there this week.

Kessa is doing great on the piano. She learns songs quickly, but even better, BJ taught her how to sound out songs. So she has taught herself how to play "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" and "I am a Child of God" and "Happy Birthday." I am super impressed. She's also loving school. We've had a minor setback in her confidence, though. When Damian was putting in smoke detectors, for various reasons they went off several times. The first several sent her booking it outside with a blanket over her head, sobbing because she just knew there was a fire and it terrified her. It's been almost two weeks and we're just barely getting to the point where she doesn't jump and cover her ears every time she hears a beep. Like the microwave timer. Or the alarm when the fridge door is left open. (She's actually pretty good about that now, actually.) But she's also really clingy to BJ and I. We'll be outside playing and I'll go in and give her the option to stay out and play, but she'll quickly follow after me saying, "I just want to be wherever you are." She won't do things by herself. Even going to the bathroom. She's slowly improving there as we give her more love and quality time, and assure her that we're still here for her and that we're still really close. It's not perfect, but we're definitely seeing progress. Poor thing.

Abby continues to be adorable. I had an older couple tell me at church today that they love sitting behind us because she just loves to stand backwards on the pew and smile at them (and everyone else). And you'll learn soon enough that her smile is utterly heart-melting.  I've started disallowing screen time until after her nap, which usually isn't somewhere between 3 and 5 pm. Which means she doesn't get screen time for most of the day. And often when she wakes up it's then dinner time and playing with  Daddy time and then bedtime and she doesn't get any all day! Which as translated to fewer pterodactyl tantrums. There are still a few, but much fewer and further between. Which makes her far more endearing to me. :D She's also taken to building temples all over the place. I think it started when our friends, Nick and Brad, came to visit and they stacked some blocks in a pyramid shape and she declared it to be a temple. Now she throws pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals into a pile and declares it a temple. It's adorable to hear things like, "I slept in a temple!"

Peter is still the best baby ever, even though the last few nights he's started waking up again. I'm chalking it up to a growth spurt and am praying that he gets over it quickly. He's almost figured out rolling over. Today he started on his back and got all the way to his stomach except he couldn't get his one arm out from  under him, so it made it look like he was hugging himself. And after a few minutes there, he just flopped himself back onto his back. The girls adore him, and he's often surrounded by blankets, toys, pillows, etc. Kessa was on the top of the world today in church when I let her hold him. And he is just incredibly handsome. Love.

Kiddisms:

• Me: Where were you when you had your accident?
  Abby: I was doing something to have an accident.
• Abby, about her water bottle, “That’s my pink oooooooone… for my own hand!” (referencing Brave, complete with Scottish accent)
• Abby, singing: Alice the camel has two thumbs.
• Kessa: This is a great season for apple pie because this is the season that pump…kins…
  [I picked up my phone to write that down]
  Kessa: Are you going to joke that?
• Me: What are you going to choose?
  Kessa: Juice?!
  Me: Choose. Juice and choose kind of sound alike, don't they?
  Kessa: But that's what you said.
  Me: I asked what are you going to choose?
  Kessa: That's what you do in your mouth. Chews!

And... I think we're done for the night. G'night!

~ Tianna and Co.