Luck and games and crafts and such.

Jessa ~

Earlier this week Abby ran into the room I was in yelling, "Kisses!"  I asked if she wanted a kiss and she said yes, so I reached down to give her a kiss on her head.  Just as she jumped up.  Results: one screaming toddler and one bloody lip for Mommy.  Thank goodness for BJ working from home.  I knew I couldn't comfort her and stop my bleeding at the same time (it took several paper towels soaked with blood before it finally stopped), so I just texted him, "Help" and he ran straight upstairs.  I love him working from home.  This was Monday.  I still have a tender bump on my lip.  Abby seems to have recovered much more quickly.

Oh, and then that night BJ and I played Ticket to Ride with Kessa.  She's been playing it a lot on the iPad and is getting pretty darn good.  So we played real rules with her on the real board (except we let her put trains on the cities she was trying to connect, so she could see them easier) and... she totally beat both of us.  Legitimately.  We lost TTR to our 4-year old.  It's a good thing my self-esteem isn't based in games.

Tuesday after Abby's nap I took the girls to IKEA.  The play place was full (Tuesday is kids' eat free day, so it's always busier), but Kessa knew it might happen and chose to just go shopping with me instead.  It was actually kind of fun.  You know that bookcase-esque thing in our family room that has 8 cubbies inside of it?  4 across and 2 down.  Well, we got another one that's just a 2x2.  A few months ago I was sick of all the toys in the family room, so we cleaned out some space in the office and moved all the toys in there.  And now we have a shelf in which to put them.  It's nice.  We also bought another stool like we have in the bathroom to put up in Kessa's room, so she can reach her clothes in the closet.  Currently she stands on an upside down laundry hamper, which seems like it will eventually collapse and it will all end in tears.  (Currently the one in the bathroom is actually by the toys in the play room, just below the window.  Abby loves to stand on the stool and watch outside.  She's obsessed with the trucks doing construction across the street. And garbage trucks.  And cars going by.  And birds in the sky.  And anything else she can see.)

Kessa painted her own fingernails a few weeks ago, with my supervision.  She did a great job.  So the other day when she wanted to paint her own fingernails again, but I was busy, I let her try.  We talked about what she needed to be careful of, and I let her go.  She came back to me a little while later, "Mommy, I don't know what the heck in the world happened!"  With glitter polish All Over her hand. I had her go get the polish remover and cotton balls, while I tried not to laugh, and made her clean it all off.  It took her probably 20 minutes, but she eventually removed it all.  :)

There were a few things that happened this week, one right after the other, that made me feel like my social life was being stripped away from me, leaving me no control over it.  The next day Kessa was super bored during Abby's nap, so I decided we could make some St. Patrick's Day crafts together.  So we went shopping and came back and painted some letters to spell LUCK, then modge podged scrapbook paper on top.  Later that day I cut a leprechaun hat out of my Silhouette and put it around my shamrocks.  It's currently a centerpiece on my table.  The two events together led me to start up an old-school homemaking-style craft group.  I provide the parts, they pay for cost, we all craft together, sans kids.  Great girls night out.  It fills both my crafting and my social needs.  I'm really excited about it.  It currently has 25 members.  Yipes!  We may have to find a different location than just my house...

I printed off the temple names that have been saving up in my family history yesterday.  61 ordinances!  I took the names that needed baptisms and confirmations down to my niece and nephew (Bailey and Braiden) who go to the temple monthly.  I figured it's their family, too.  So they'll do that next week and then we can get started on the rest of their work.  I'm kind of excited.  I think we'll need to set up a more regular babysitter and go to the temple more often...

Saturday's daily chore was vacuuming.  I needed to write a talk (I spoke in church today.  Again.  I'll post the talk). We bribed Kessa.  If she would help clean up everything on the carpeted floors before Abby's nap, then daddy would take her rock climbing during Abby's nap.  She immediately got to work.  Haha.  I was able to spend the morning on my talk.  BJ and Kessa cleaned the house and vacuumed all the floors.  Then they left and Abby took a nap and I got a couple of hours to finish up my talk and do some family history.  Meanwhile BJ and Kessa stood in a really long line, went rock climbing, played in the playground thing at Trafalga, then got ice cream together.  What a fun daddy/daughter date!

I'm pretty sure Kessa isn't getting into Lakeview, the charter school I was rooting for.  There are 100 spots in Kindergarten and she's 163 on the wait list.  Which means every single child accepted could drop out and she'd still be 63 on the wait list.  Yipes.  I don't think that one is going to happen.  The other lottery we put her in won't be held until the end of March, so we'll have to see what happens now.  Right now I'm figuring she'll probably just go to the local public school.  We may rethink things for 1st grade.  Re-enter her into both lotteries.  Plus there are two public schools around here that offer immersion.  One for Spanish and one for Chinese.  But they don't start until 1st grade.  So we'll look into that next year.

My biggest concern (which is a concern for all potential schools) is Common Core.  I don't actually know a lot about it, but I know a lot of parents against it.  I decided to look into it for myself and went to the Common Core website.  I first looked at the math requirements for Kindergarten.  Probably 90% or more of the curriculum she can already do.  And what's left I could probably teach her in a day or two.  Things like recognizing 3D shapes, like cones and cylinders.  Or starting to count something in the middle of the list.  "Can you count to 20, starting at 12?"  Since I read that I've noticed that she always starts at one.  But I don't think that'd be hard to teach, either.  I... fear she'll be bored in math.

So then I looked at the reading requirements.  She'll learn to recognize letters, recognize that letters go from left to right, top to bottom.  Words are separated by spaces.  Written words are just symbols for spoken words.  Learn a handful of sight words.  Oh boy.  This week she brought home the first book in the 1st grade reading level group.  She's learning to blend consonants, like gr in green.  She can read short and long vowels.  She's probably got dozens of sight words under her belt.  So, apparently she's going to be bored in math and reading.  [sigh]  So pray she'll get a good teacher that will worth with her and with me.  K?  My biggest fear is that either she'll get bored and become a behavioral problem, or that she'll see all her friends far below her and decide she wants to be like them, and regress.  She loves to learn so much.  I hope she keeps that.  So... pray for her, k?  Though, you'll be about home by the time any of this actually comes into play...

Has anyone told you that Nick started a Kickstarter?  (Do you know what Kickstarter is?  It's where someone puts up an idea, says "I need this much money to make this real" and people give him money.  And they get rewards for their money.  So for the most part, you're just buying the product in advance.  The more money you give, the better the rewards.)  Nick wants to make a pdf of "How to build a motorized couch" so that everyone can build them!  (How long, do you think, before Utah starts making laws regulating the use of motorized couches?)  He's only asking $150.  So my guess is that he's doing it just to get a better feel for how Kickstarter works.  Maybe he'll use it for his flyboard someday?  Who knows.  Or maybe he's just doing it for kicks and giggles.  Because he's Nick.  :D

Abby's obsessed with "sad" lately.  Her stuffed animals are often sad and she brings them to us to make them feel better.  If you ever ask if she or anyone else is happy or sad, she'll say sad.  She'll pretend to frown.  It's kind of cute and funny.  And slightly worrying.  But hopefully the phase will pass.  :)  She's also really adorable when she's sad.  (Not when she's mad, though.  Yikes.)  Like this morning I was sitting up on my vanity, straightening my hair and doing makeup.  She was sitting next to me.  She was trying to climb up on my lap while I had the hot flat iron in my hand, so I told her, "No, Abby.  You can't sit on my lap."  She looked up at me with the most *adorable* sad face, and then promptly buried her face in my lap, where she sat for the next 2-3 minutes.  That sad face, followed by burying her head in my arm, lap, side, etc. is probably one of the cutest things ever.  In a sad way, of course.

From Facebook:
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I've been in process of deep cleaning my room for a few days now. I'm almost done. I mostly just need to move the dozen piles of books from the floor to the bookcases, once they're mounted on the walls.

But last night I looked around and remembered that our room is really big. And when it's clean it looks really empty. And when it looks really empty, I'm going to want to buy furniture to fill it.

Conclusion: it is far cheaper to not clean my room.

(Note: We did end up cleaning our room.  Yesterday BJ attached the bookcases to the wall, so we spent the evening moving all the books over and organizing them on the shelves.  It seems weird to be able to see all of our books again.  And to have so much open space on our floor.  I'm glad I'm planning a home birth and will want the space for the supplies and tub so that I won't get overly focused on wanting to fill the space with furniture...)

------------------------------
Cool thing I learned about my family tonight: My mother's line is Norwegian (this I already knew) and as such followed a patronymic naming system. So the last name of the children are the first name of the father plus -sen or -datter. I was curious at what point in my line that tradition stopped. Turns out my grandma (and her siblings) were the first generation to take their father's last name instead of his first.

I'm trying to decide if it's because that was the first generation where the father was not Norwegian or if, in making the decision of what surname to give their children, they realized that their child would be named Doloris Harmon or Doloris Lorenzodatter. It seems that choosing between the two should be pretty darn easy. (Also, they chose wisely.)


Kiddisms:

• While talking about the size of the sun, Kessa: you would need more than 100 days to build that.
• Me: What should we have for dinner?
  Abby: Ice cream!
• Kessa forgot what she was going to ask me. I told her to think about it and get back to me. “Ok. I’ll think about it and if it appears in my head, I will tell you. That is my plan.”
• Kessa: I have 4 blueberries.
  Me: And you're 4-years old!
  Kessa, thinking: You should give me one more because I fit 5. (She wears size 5.)
• Abby's shoe size is 5. Kessa's clothes size is 5. Kessa saw Abby's shoes and said, “If Abby's shoes were clothes, they'd fit me.”

Happy Sabbath!

~ Tianna and Co.

Happy Valentines... a few days late!

Jessa ~

It doesn't seem that this week had much going.  I wonder, then, why the heck I am so tired... haha

Tuesday we were going to have one of my high school friends over for dinner, so she could try out Voldemoo, but she had to cancel last minute.  Earlier that day one of BJ's college friends posted that she had extra key lime pie if anyone wanted it, so he suggested we invite her and her family over to help us eat the roast I'd cooked.  I was skeptical as it was already 5:00, but surprisingly, she didn't have any dinner plans yet, so they came over.  Their two kids played well with our two kids, so we pretty much just let them roam and play while we taught them Kingdom Builder (after dinner).  And then we all ate their leftover pie.  It was really fun.

Valentine's Day was this week.  Kessa made a bunch of valentines for her preschool class.  It consisted of a pencil stuck through a heart with white scallops around it that said, "You're just WRITE Valentine".  And then on the tip and the eraser we put a heart and a feather-like thing so that it looked like Cupid's Arrow.  It was fun.  We had extra pencils so she made a bunch for her neighborhood friends, too.  The weather has been extraordinarily nice, too, so we went on several walks this week, including walking around to deliver half of them.

Friday, Valentine's Day, Teresa came down to babysit while we went to Les Mis up at Hale.  We got there a little late, so we missed the first scene (about 10 minutes) and apparently what I thought took up half the play was all in those 10 minutes.  I'd never actually seen the play until Friday, but I had heard the music a lot.  But turns out, only hearing the popular songs on shuffle does not help my brain figure out a logical storyline.  I was surprised at how much of the story was completely new for me.  But really well done.  Clearly.  This is Hale.

But apparently we were the very first show, so we got the major technical difficulty.  Just after a certain character commits suicide, the bridge he jumps off of wouldn't go back in for the scene change.  So they had to pause the show for about 20 minutes while the executive producer (who is a daughter of the Hale's) came out and talked to us.  She told us all about how they got the show (they hand picked 8 community theaters across the US to give the rights to, and Hale was one of them) and about the audition process (about 600 people showed up to audition!) and then she started to answer questions... and then they finally got the bridge out.  Problem was, the next show (we were at the matinee) was already scheduled really close after ours, and this pushed it even closer, so when we left, it took us about 20 mins of sitting still in the parking lot before we finally were able to get out.  Yipes!

On the way home we stopped at a multi-ward (including ours) dinner and dance at our stake center.  We ate dinner there and had a great time watching other people dance.  (We're just not fast dancers, I'm sorry.)  And then we came back so that Teresa could go have some Valentine's Day time with Steven.  [wink]

Kessa has been really into drawing and coloring lately.  Like, really good.  Even her preschool teacher is impressed with her progress.  She colored a picture during Joy School a week or two ago that's been hanging up.  I decided to take a picture of it so you could see.  Please note that the colors are in correct rainbow order.  She didn't ask for help.  She just already knows the order of the rainbow.  Goodness gracious that girl.

The Way of Kings sequel comes out next month, so BJ has been reading it again.  Plus they've released the first several chapters online, so we've read those.  Jessa, it's intense.  You have to read!!!

I told you the weather has been nice, right?  Well, yesterday we ended up spending a good chunk of the day outside.  The neighbor girls left a sled outside, but the rain and warm weather have melted almost all the snow.  Abby climbed in the sled, so Kessa started pulling Abby around on the grass!  She actually did pretty good.  Especially after we convinced Abby to drop the rock she was holding and actually hold on so she didn’t fall backwards with every abrupt start.  :)

Kiddisms

• Kessa: I think I know how to drive a car. But I'm not old enough! Because I don't know where to go!
• Kessa, trying to go to sleep when Abby was wandering about, “Daddy, I’m not pleased with Abby right now!”
• Abby: Roar!!!
  Kessa: No Abby, a clown doesn't say Roar, an elephant says… No wait. A lion says roar!
• Kessa, completely out of the blue: Congratulations! You've saved the planet.
  
  Apparently it's in a game?
• Kessa wrote a Valentine to her neighbor-friend, Izzy, that says, “I love you more than Tianna.”
  Me: What?! I birthed you and nursed you and fed you and clothed you and you love Izzy more than me?!
  Kessa: I still love you, mom. I still love you a lot.
  BJ: And yet, no denial.
  Me: [sigh]
• We stayed at a neighbor’s house till late, so the stars were out as we walked home. Kessa pointed to a bright one (BJ thinks it was Jupiter, maybe?) and said, “Look! That’s the star where Heavenly Father was born!”

Have a great week!

~ Tianna and Co.

Voldemoo

Jessa ~

I had another midwife appt. this week.  Everything is looking great.  As of Friday Baby 3.0 weighed about the same as a large mango.  About 1 pound.  He's growing a lot!  He's starting to move more; BJ's felt him move a few times.  Kessa doesn't have enough patience to keep her hand there long enough to feel him.  But I think we'll get it as he grows and moves more and more.

We put a closet organizer in the girls' closet this week.  But turns out we're going to have to be handy and tear stuff out in order to get what I really want.  So... it's only half done.  And currently really does no good.  Haha.  But we'll get there eventually.  I hope.  Maybe we'll have to make Nick or Travis come do the dirty work...  You asked for a picture of the girls' room.  Here is one, taken from inside the closet.  It's not a great picture, but it's hard to take a picture of a bedroom.  The dresser is at the foot of Abby's bed.

I taught Joy School again this week.  The Joy of Obedience and Decisions.  I focused on Obedience.  It was fun, but also a little frustrating as we're talking about a specific rule as one or more of the girls are breaking it.  But they're only 3 and 4.  So it's hard to really be tough on enforcing some of the rules, unless they're actually distracting the rest or causing problems.  And honestly, in any other lesson, I wouldn't have thought twice about their behavior.  It was just talking about obedience that made it way more obvious and frustrating.  But we managed.  And now we can talk to Kessa more about being obedient and how rules make us happy, and how breaking rules ends up with punishments.  But how we can always repent.

We had Parent/Teacher conference on Wednesday.  My parents were in town for RootsTech and had come down that night to bring us the meat from Voldemoo!  (More on that in a minute.)  They also brought two of the young women from their ward, who have adopted my parents as grandparents.  Like, they call them Grandma and Grandpa.  Anyway, they were there for dinner (and Trav), so they watched the girls while we went to Kessa's preschool.  Basically, it's what we expected.  She has improved a ton.  She is brilliant.  :D  (Ok, that's my word.)  Apparently the next set of books she's going to get into will put her up to a 1st and 2nd grade reading level.  (Those focus on blends and digraphs, respectively.) I have no doubt of her getting to those books shortly.  We're back up to two books a week and she's breezing through them.  She's also making impressive progress on coloring and writing.  And apparently she'll now play with anyone that's playing what she wants to play.  Where at the beginning of the year she was way more timid and cautious.  She's definitely coming out of her bubble a little.  She still has trouble standing at the front of the class (doesn't surprise me), and singing songs when she's not in the mood.  This is what her teacher wrote about her on her report card, "Kessa is a joy to have in class. I look forward to seeing her smile.  She is smart and reads really well.  She asks and answers questions.  She tries hard in all she does.  Look forward to watching her learn and grow."

So, Voldemoo is here!  Yay!  He filled 8 apple or paper-sized boxes.  We got 3/8 of the meat, so almost, but not quite, a half a cow.  We started first with a steak.  I'd never made a good steak, and I'd never been a lover of steak.  So I talked to a friend who loves cooking and is really into the chemistry of cooking.  So he pointed me to a couple great methods and I tried it out.  It was So Good.  Mmmmm.  I couldn't believe how good it was.  Tonight we had steak again (and this time I made gravy! From scratch!  From the drippings!)  It was still good, but not quite as good.  It tasted more salty and less buttery.  Alas.  But still good.  So I guess I just need to keep practicing.  We're having roast on Tuesday, when a friend of mine from high school comes to dinner.  So I'll keep you posted. :)

What a full cow looks like in boxes.

What 3/8 of a cow looks like in my freezer.
(Plus a few other things.)

So BJ and I decided we'd like to go to RootsTech, the family history conference my parents were down for.  They were having an LDS day on Saturday, and it was free.  So we talked to your mom who agreed to babysit the girls so we could go.  And then we discovered that it was sold out.  But we weren't discouraged!  Instead we just left a little later and came back a little earlier.  And instead of going to sessions, we went to the expo hall, then went out to lunch with my parents and co. then went to the Family History Center to look at microfilm and do family history work. And I was able to prove a marriage that most of my work this past week has been hinged on!  I had found 21 new people to add to my family tree (and since 3 more, at least), which was about 10-12 of each ordinance.  But it all hinged on proving one marriage... specifically the fathers of the bride and groom.  But I did it!  I proved it!  Hooray!!! So now I've got some temple work to do...

Finding proof in microfilm!

A selfie of BJ and I at the family history center.  :)

I wrote this in my journal on Tuesday about my family history work/conversion:

I think I figured out why I'm spending so much of my time on familysearch.org and figuring out my totally messed up family tree. Because data is how my brain works. It's wired to enjoy mundane, tedious, stressful things. It's wired to fix broken data. That's why I worked in digitizing books for 5 years.

But more, as a stay-at-home mom, I feel like my brain doesn't get taxed like it used to. I'm not complaining; I love teaching my kids and spending time with them. But my brain doesn't get stretched academically like it used to. Genealogy is forcing my brain to stretch again. It's making me think through massive mostly-non-mathematical story problems. And I'm good at it. Not only is it working my brain, but it's also making me feel like I'm making a contribution to society.

Just tonight I've added 16 new people to my family tree. Most aren't a direct line. Which means that I've added to hundreds of other people's family trees. They're not connected to them yet, but that doesn't mean they won't be eventually. I've just opened up hundreds of possibilities. And have done all the leg work to show sources and prove they are where they should be. That makes me feel pretty darn great.

Abby wanted to see herself, so I turned on my camera on my phone.  She sat there and grinned and made adorable faces for several minutes.  I took pictures of a few of them.  Here's one.

Abby fell asleep standing up.  It's a Where's Waldo photo.  Can you find her?
Hints: look for the shoes, her head is on the bed, Kessa's nightgown is wrapped around her head.

Kiddisms

• Me: Uh-oh!
  Abby: Skettios.
  Me: Did she just say “skettios?”
  BJ: She did.
  Kessa: What's the issue dear?  (quote from Frozen, but still, hilarious coming out of the mouth of a 4-year old)
• I threatened to take away suckers as a great if Kessa started whining about her sense of entitlement to them.
  Kessa: But then they'd go to waste!
  Me: No, we could give them to Audrey or Izzy. Or maybe mom and dad could eat them.
  Kessa: No, you can't eat them.
  Me: Why not?
  Kessa: You two eating them would just be…weird.
• Kessa is learning to write phonetically. It’s adorable. Especially her misspellings. For example, she sent a message to Daddy today that said, “I love you mor then pech cos dade sed kessa” Translation: I love you more than peach coins daddy said Kessa.

<3 Tianna and Co.

A random montage of events

Abby went to the pediatrician this week. It's a new one.  I like him better than our last.  It was her 2-year appointment.  No vaccines!  No more until Kindergarten!  Yay!  Even more surprising news, she's up to 42% in weight!  She was 15% in August.  Apparently she's getting plenty of calories, despite not drinking milk.  Haha.

All her stats:
Weight: 24.69 lbs.  42.14%
Length: 32"  5.57%  (unsurprising)
Head: 18"  14.73%

While we were there, Kessa showed him her missing tooth.  He was surprised to see it gone at age 4.  When I told him she had 12 teeth by 12 months, he was equally surprised.  He then concluded that she had mature bone growth, which is why she got them so fast and started to lose them so early.  And why she's so tall.  It also means she'll probably stop growing sooner than her peers, so she might be the tallest for awhile, but she'll probably end up being fairly average eventually.  So maybe she does have some of me in her.  I was the second tallest in 2nd grade, but ended up being one of the shortest in high school.

We had baptisms again on Saturday.  And for the first time maybe ever, everything went incredibly smoothly.  I spent the whole time wondering what was going to go wrong.  It was a pleasant change.

My hip has been feeling somewhat better.  Annoyingly, now when I sit on my legs or cross them at the knee, I can feel it pulling on the sore spot on my hip.  So it gives me more incentive to not sit like that, but that doesn't mean I like it.  I went back to the chiropractor this week and he agrees that I'm doing better.  I'm not going back in for a month unless it starts to hurt again.

Saturday Kessa got to go to a neighbor's bday party.  (A boy!)  We took her shopping the night before and she picked out a large ball and a 5-pack of toy cars to give him.  Then on the way home cried because she wanted to keep them.  Haha.  We had to explain that we want to give people gifts that are really great.  Which often means we like those gifts, too.  So it's a good thing she likes them.  But we have to be happy when we give them to someone else.  That eventually pacified her.  She ended up having a fantastic time and came home so excited to tell us everything about it.

I got a break from ward conference this week!  We don't have them on Fast Sunday.  It was nice to get ready with the rest of the family AND come home with them.  We even walked to church today with the new double stroller your parents got us for Christmas.  So far we love it.  BJ played the piano for Primary as a substitute, so I went to Sunday School alone (and RS, of course).  I had some interesting thoughts. You're a missionary, so you might care, so I'll share.  Haha.

The Sunday School lesson was on Cain and Abel.  One point we talked about was how Cain was a tiller of the earth (aka farmer) and Abel raised flocks.  I sense there was probably competition between the two brothers for most of their lives.  Abel was the perfect child and Cain was more of a rebel, probably often getting into trouble.  And probably often being compared to Abel.  ("Why can't you just obey like Abel does?!")

Sacrifices were made using animals.  Cain didn't have animals.  He planted food and grew it.  So to get an animal to sacrifice to the Lord, he'd have had to go to his brother, Abel.  That had to have rubbed him the wrong way.  So one day Satan comes to him and tells him just to sacrifice his food.  I can just imagine the justification in Cain's mind.  "How come Abel's hard work is good enough for the Lord?  How come I can't sacrifice my hard work to him?  Isn't my best good enough?  Of course not.  Only Abel is good enough.  Is it wrong to want to grow food?  Is raising sheep the only good profession?  Psh."  So he sacrificed his food.

The point he missed though was that blood sacrifices were there for a reason.  They were a type and shadow of Christ.  They symbolized the blood that Christ would shed for us as the ultimate sacrifice.  It had nothing to do with favoritism between Cain vs. Abel.  But Cain, prideful and selfish, couldn't see past himself and his own rivalry to see the purpose of God.  We do that a lot, don't we?  We get so focused on ourselves and how something in the gospel affects us and how it's unfair that we forget to look for God's purpose.  Usually it has nothing to do with us.

Moving on to Relief Society.  The lesson was on Women and the Priesthood.  Now, you've probably missed most of this, but maybe you were around for part of it.  There's this movement right now of women who want the priesthood.  They stood in line to get into the Priesthood session at this past conference.  They've written letters to the First Presidency.  Most do the thing properly.  No riots.  Going through the right channels, etc.  (There are, of course, some vocal women who do damage.)  I can see their perspective.  The Bible Dictionary tells us that there are blessings he's willing to give us, but only if we ask.  So they're asking.  Not demanding.  Asking.

So this lesson was a highly charged one.  (Though, most of our class were senior women.  They make up 60% of the ward and most of the younger women we do have teach Primary or YW.  So it wasn't really *that* charged.)  It was based off a conference talk, though, so we spent most of the time quoting from that, which helped keep us on topic and from going off on self-righteous tangents.  Mostly it focused on how men don't control the priesthood, they channel it.  They can open the window, but they can't control where the sunlight goes or how warm it gets.  And we focused on how everyone in the church is equal in receiving the blessings of the priesthood.  Even priesthood holders have to seek out a priesthood holder to get a blessing, for example.

But I couldn't help but remember my thoughts from Sacrament meeting.  And I have to wonder... this movement, is it so focused on what women want that they're forgetting to look at God's purpose?  Specifically it made me wonder if, perhaps, men holding the priesthood is symbolic of Christ's ministry and works.  Blood sacrifices had to be the oldest male animal and without blemish.  Because Christ was the oldest, was male, and was without sin.  Could men holding the priesthood be symbolic of Christ, a male, doing good works with the priesthood?  I don't know.  I've never heard a church authority say as much.  But it did make me wonder.  Perhaps there's more to the decision of men holding the priesthood instead of women than just God thinking men are better.  Maybe it's more than just women can have babies and men can hold the priesthood.

Cain's hard work wasn't bad.  He could offer up the best of his work to the Lord by giving it to those in need.  Cain's food wasn't bad or lesser than Abel's animals.  However, the ordinance of sacrifice was not about what things are good or bad.  It was about Christ.  Same with the priesthood.  Women aren't bad.  They aren't lesser than men.  We are of equal worth to God.  But, perhaps, the priesthood isn't about men vs. women.  Maybe it's simply about symbology.

Anyway, that's my current speculation.  It's an interesting thought, anyway.

Speaking of churchy things, a couple of weeks ago I was doing some family history.  I'm convinced that there's actually no temple work left to do on my line.  Instead, my job is to find all the work that claims to be ready, then go through and prove how it's wrong.  "Nope, this person who needs work is actually a duplicate of this person who has had his/her work done already."  I do a lot of merging of duplicates.  And finding sources.  Anyway, I surprised myself by finding an entire family that legitimately needed their work done!  I spent hours cleaning them up, merging, sourcing, etc.  And then I reserved all the work.  16 or 17 cards to print and 42 ordinances!  I was so stoked.  And then... I realized they weren't really my family.  In my cleaning up I deleted a child that wasn't really their child.  But he was my ancestor.  And my link to that family.  When I deleted his relationship to that family, they suddenly ceased to be my family.  Which means I wasn't allowed to do all that work.  (Confirming my suspicions that my family has no work to be done.)  I was so heartbroken that I had to stop doing family history.  I just didn't have the heart.  It took me until today, after a talk with my stake family history consultant, to finally release those names and hope and pray that someday, someone related to them will come find them and be elated at the jackpot they found.

But in good news, I had the heart to start working on my own line again.  To prove to you the insanity on my line... I found a grandfather several generations back that claimed temple work needed to be done.  He supposedly had 13 kids, but I'm pretty sure that 6-ish of those are duplicates.  So I went and found a source for one daughter, Anne Marie, that proved her parentage and birth date.  I was pretty sure that one of her "siblings" was really a duplicate of hers, so I went to "Possible Duplicates" and found she had 10-11 duplicates!  I went through and confirmed that all but one really were duplicates.  Yipes.  In merging them, though, I gave her 5 more kids (all duplicates, but I haven't merged them yet) and 7 more husbands.  (All duplicates of her actual husband.)  So I decided to go merge the husbands.  So I went to the real guy and searched for possible duplicates... and found 11 possible duplicates!  Oh, I also gave her, I think, 3 more parents.  (All duplicates.)

Jessa, that is only on one of the 13 kids!  It's going to take me weeks of working for hours every day to fix this family.  [sigh]  It's insane.

I also found a duplicate in your family.  Grandpa Goddard was in their twice!  But I set BJ to fix it.  So BJ got to call your dad and teach him about duplicates and merging and such.  So that was fun.  :)

Oh, I also found a duplicate for my great aunt and her son... who are both living.  But listed as deceased.  I had to call my mom and be like, "I'm a horrible person in our family... but is Aunt Marlene dead?  She panicked a little, "No, why?!"  Thinking that maybe she had died, but no one had told my mom.  Haha.

Ok, let's get move on to kids for awhile.

Kessa is getting really into games.  She made us play Monopoly on the Monopoly table.  We simplified the rules a lot.  Like, we just handed out all the cards, didn't do hotels, etc.  Didn't collect $200 at Go.  And instead of charging the normal rent, we acted as though everything had one house on it.  And as we went forever doing it that way, we upped it to two houses.  Even then we finally just set a timer and said when it went off, we'd count up our money and see who won.  BJ won.  And then we had to teach a good-sportsmanship lesson, because Kessa was sad that she hadn't won.  But she calmed down really well.  But now she keeps asking if we can finish our game.  Hah!  She's also getting surprisingly good at Ticket to Ride.  She loves playing on the iPad and wins probably 85% of the time now!  If not more!  It's pretty amazing.

Abby continues in her diva ways.  Now when she washes her hands with soap, if we let her stay up too long, she'll start taking her wet hands and wiping the curls on the back of her head with them, saying, "Pretty hair!" the whole time.  Where does she come up with these things?!  She's also obsessed with chocolate (or rather, chwock-wet).  She knows where it is in the pantry (though, out of reach) and she'll stand there and yell, "Chocolate please!" until someone caves and gives her some.  Even if we successfully distract her temporarily with something else, food or otherwise, she'll always come back to it.

We took down the grateful tree, finally.  I cut out a bunch of hearts instead.  We're writing things we love on there and I told Kessa she could tape them anywhere on the wall she wanted.  In my head, I meant that section of the wall.  But she took me at my word and we now have hearts all over the place.  Though, we suggested she make a heart out of the hearts, so I think most of them have been gathered and put together to make the beginnings of a bigger heart.  Turns out, though, as I watch her spell phonetically, I'm again convinced that English is stupid.  Why is Mommy not Mome?  Why is Daddy not Dade?  Or Doggie, Doge?  Or Kitty, Kide?  It's adorable, so I let it slide, but if she knew she were spelling them wrong, she wouldn't be happy that we let it go.  She doesn't like to spell things wrong.  If she figures out that they're wrong, she makes us help her spell them correctly.  But then she gets confused when rules break.  Like she was writing "Swimming" and was confused why there was an i at the end when the vowel there clearly says e.  I had no good answer for her, except that lots of words like to break rules, so we just have to learn the sight words.  And anything that says "eeng" is really spelled -ing.  She accepted it, and moved on, but I hate those conversations.  "I don't know why.  Just because that's the way it is."  I like giving real answers.

In other news, we sold BJ's Honda.  The one he's had forever.  It needed repairs that would cost us more than the car was probably worth.  And a guy in our neighborhood, who happens to be a mechanic, offered to buy it from us.  He needed a car pretty desperately and he could fix it for cheaper (since he'd do the labor free for himself).  We figured BJ works at home and only drives it 1-2 times per month.  We are probably good candidates for a one-car family.  And this guy clearly needed it more than we did.  So we sold it.  Our garage is pretty empty.  But in good news, now we have ample stroller and lawn mower parking!  No more crazy maneuvers to get those things in and out!  We're toying with the ideas of either getting him a moped for the warmer months or investing in an electric car (that I would drive around town when I only have two kids with me).  The smog here is getting ridiculous, so we like the idea of electric/hybrid cars.  But they come with a hefty price tag. And where he doesn't commute, it's harder to justify.

Oh, and lastly, the girls are doing much better at going to sleep together.  It's definitely not perfect, but they're getting used to it.  Which makes our jobs easier. But Kessa is loving that her bedtime is pretty much indefinitely pushed back a half hour or more, in order to let Abby fall asleep first.  Though, I'm thinking that soon we'll stop that and just let them go to bed at the same time.  Especially as half the time Kessa ends up waking up Abby anyway, so we end up putting them back to bed at the same time.

And... I think that pretty much catches us up!

So... Kiddisms

• This first one won't make much sense to you, as you haven't seen Frozen yet.  But just know that every other line (starting with the first) are lines from that and the other ones I can only imagine are from preschool:
  Kessa, singing while doing perler beads:
  I caaaan't!
  [pause]
  Who let the G out? Juh! Juh! Juh!
  [pause]
  Jinx. Jinx again!
  [pause]
  Who let the A out? A! A! A!
  [pause]
  I'm alone and free.
• Me: you're a smartie!
  Kessa: No, I'm a cutie.
  Me: You're a cutie smartie.
  Kessa: Gooood point.  (Think how Nick says it.)

<3 Tianna and Co.

Mostly just about kids. You're welcome.

Jessa ~

Photo by Travis Lovell Photography

 Today is Abby's birthday!  Can you believe that she's two?!  Insane.  2 years ago today I was having the most empowering high of my life.  You were there!  Can you believe that's been two years?

Photo by Travis Lovell Photography

Goodness.  That girl.  I love her.  She drives me insane.  She's adorably cute.  She can make me laugh like crazy.  She can also wear me out in record time.  She continues to be diva to the core.  Just tonight she spent at least an hour walking around with a wet washcloth on her head.  We FaceTimed Grandma and Grandpa Lovell and she spent half of the conversation unable to focus on talking to them because she was too busy watching herself in the little video, putting her head down, covering her face with the washcloth, then popping back up to see her face, etc.  It was funny.  She's getting to the point that she wears three dresses a day.  Sometimes on top of each other.  Sometimes she'll agree to take the old one off before I put the new one on.

When Abby sees lotion, she wants it. I put it on her hands, then she immediately sits down and rubs it on her legs (because, of course, she is wearing a dress.)

 When she sees chapstick she yells “lips!” and has to put it on. By herself. For at least the next half hour. And if you take it away from her before she is done, she screams for the next half hour.

Like all foods, she prefers to eat from the face down.
Photo by Travis Lovell Photography

When anyone washes their hands she yells, “Soap!” and won’t be pacified until she has gotten to wash her hands with soap.

She begs to brush her teeth and gets mad if we don’t put on toothpaste (because it’s the third time that day). 

Who is this girl!?

She insists on watching Baby Signing Time.  A lot. She doesn't sign a whole lot, though.  I think she uses it to build her vocabulary.  A lot of times when we go outside she'll tell me it's windy.  (Even though it's not.)  Her next favorite show is "Jesus Mary"  Over Christmas that meant the Nativity movie.  But they don't have that one on the Bible Videos app for the iPad, so instead it now means a short, maybe 3-minute show, about Mary.  She'll watch it over and over again.  She also has no patience.  When it gets to the end, it shows a scripture.  And the words are up there long enough for you to read it.  Which usually means enough time for her to run up to me, pleading look on her face, holding out the iPad to me, saying, "Help!  Jesus Mary!  Help!"  And then the video finishes and she can start it again.  She's been starting to break out and try other movies in the app, though.  She'll pick random girls in the other shows and declare them to be Mary.

Photo by Travis Lovell Photography

Yesterday we moved her into Kessa's room.  We wanted to give her enough time to warm up to it and be comfortable there before we started taking away her binkie for good.  We want to give her enough time sans binkie that there won't be fights when the new baby comes.  I was really worried about this transition.  She surprised me at how well she transitioned to the crib becoming a toddler bed, but switching rooms?  That seemed like a much bigger deal.  New toys.  New things to look at.  Could she really sleep?  And I couldn't help but remember that when Kessa first switched to a toddler bed, she got stitches in her eyelid that first night, then started the whole fight-to-go-to-bed phase that still hasn't really passed.  It takes an hour to get to bed because she's so easily distracted and we have to read stories and sing songs and then convince her that yes, it really is time to go to bed and yes, Daddy really has to leave.  And then there are tears.  And it's just really, really long.  And I was not looking forward to having Abby do the same thing.

I shouldn't have worried.  Yesterday's nap was shorter than normal, and thanks to Dropcam we were able to watch for awhile as she just played around the room.  But then she found the camera (it was just sitting on Kessa's bed temporarily) and moved it so we couldn't see anything.  (We've since moved it to the top of the dresser.)  But she stayed in there, silent, for over an hour, then was happy afterwards, so we assume she eventually fell asleep.

Last night was the best, though.  She went down and slept without a problem.  We let Kessa stay awake for awhile to let Abby really fall asleep, then BJ took her up to bed (she was all ready for bed at this point) and told her that she had to be really, really quiet so she didn't wake up Abby.  So Daddy couldn't even sing.  Kessa was so excited to have Abby in her room, that she didn't make a single complaint.  She just went to bed.  They both slept all night.  Then this morning we heard talking in there, so BJ opened the Dropcam app and we watched as Kessa showed Abby pictures in a book.  Then Abby found Kessa's water and wouldn't give it to her.  And then just laughed and played.  It was such a refreshing change for the morning.  Then Kessa opened the door and they both came in to find us.  I really hope this is a good omen for the rest of the year.  Today she went down without a peep for nap time, then again for bedtime.  IT'S A MIRACLE.

I've decided that it's either because Abby and Kessa are so opposite that of course Abby would handle something so well that is a weakness of Kessa's.  (If this is true, I suddenly have more hope for potty training Abby.  Currently my plan is to not potty train her until she's in 2nd grade and begging to have panties because she's so embarrassed to go to elementary in diapers.)  My other theory is that it's a tender mercy from Heavenly Father, to show me that having more kids isn't going to kill me.  And that even though Abby may have a lot of energy, she's also super sweet.  And a third child will be doable.  Maybe it's a combination?

We had two birthday parties for Abby.  One was last night.  I tried to think what she would think is fun for a party and decided trampoline jumping.  She currently satisfies her craving for it by having us take off the couch cushions, at which point they become, "Jump trampolines!"  There are some weeks they're off the couch more than they're on.  Our friends, the Harris' have an indoor trampoline in their house, so we went over there and had cupcakes and ice cream.  They also have twin boys about 5 months younger than Abby that are probably her closest friends, inasmuch as you can have friends at the age of 2.  So that worked out well.  Travis and a friend of his, Brenda, came to that party.  They actually came earlier and ate dinner with us, then stayed later and learned Kingdom Builder with us.  So that was fun.

Then today was 4th Sunday dinner, so we went to your parents' where we ate opened presents and ate more cake and ice cream.  (And played with marbles and legos and all the aunts/uncles (including Chelsea), grandma/grandpa and Brian Adams and his girlfriend.)   By the time we got home she was so exhausted that she just went straight to bed.

Ok.  Let's take a break from Abby for a little bit and tell you more about Kessa lately.

We watched the new Disney movie, Frozen, last Saturday.  We took Kessa.  It's only her second theater experience, and the only one she remembers.  She loved it.  So much.  Our house has been a musical ever since.  BJ plays the music on the piano often.  (Of course just making it up. He's never seen actual sheet music for it.)  He really loves the music because there are a couple of duets that are full of emotion where one character is happy, singing in a major key, where the other character is sad/fearful/scared and singing in a minor key.  At the same time.  He's really quite obsessed with them.  :)  It's cute.  Kessa loves all of the songs just as much.  She's really turning into quite the musical smarty pants.  BJ will hum a piece of a song to himself, almost under his breath, and she'll hear him across the room and start singing the song.  She'll walk around singing a random piece of a song out of the blue.  There's one song at the beginning that isn't as popular, so we don't sing it as often, but she really likes it.  Well, during one of the popular songs there is a musical interlude in which it plays a piece from that song.  They were listening to it once (we bought the soundtrack) and when Kessa heard that she said, "Daddy, I really like that song.  We should listen to it next."  She totally picked it out!  I didn't even pick it out!

She's also showing a lot of promise at the piano.  She can play Mary Had a Little Lamb like a champ.  BJ's even taught her to play two-handed.  Of course, her left hand is just playing middle-C over and over and over again.  But she's so proud of herself for playing two-handed.  The other day she told BJ that she wanted to learn something hard for her.  So he taught her to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  She had a good grip on it within 20 minutes.  The other day she was singing a song, stopped, went to the piano and tried to pick out the notes to play it.  WHAT THE HECK!??!  She is so smart!

Kessa happily learning to scrub toilets for her daily chore.

She's still progressing like crazy in reading, too.  We had to buy a new set of books at school because she's almost finished the short vowels and long vowels books.  Both her teacher and the front desk ladies gushed and praised at how fast she's learning to read.  Today her Primary teacher stopped us and commented on how smart she is and how none of the other kids in her class are even close to being able to read.  "But even when she doesn't know a word, she can sound it out!"  [beams]  She really is amazing.  We've been calling her smart a lot lately, so we've been trying to talk about how "smart" really means "willing to learn new things" and "willing to do hard things".  We're trying to teach her that smart isn't so much inborn as it is an attitude towards learning.  We praise her when she works hard to figure something out, even when she gets it wrong.  We gush when she says she can't do something because it's too hard, but then she does it.  (Usually with encouragement from us.)

Of course, she's not perfect, but there's no reason to point out her weaknesses right now.  Let's keep this a gushing, my kids are amazing, kind of email.  Ok?  :)

Baby 3.0 is a mover.  Even BJ has felt him move once or twice.  It's fun getting to the point that I can feel him move a lot.  I've been trying to wean myself into being super excited about having a boy.  So the other day I went shopping for something else and detoured through the baby section and bought two new outfits.  I figure I have to stock up a whole new wardrobe, so I should be on the lookout for good deals now, right?  Plus, it was exciting looking at a whole new section of the baby section.

Kessa is really concerned lately.  "But Mommy, we have to buy trucks before the baby is born!"  She's really on a trucks kick.  I finally had to explain the other day that when he's first born, all he will do is eat and sleep.  And won't care about trucks one whit.  But as he gets older, then he'll care.  So then we can buy him trucks.  She seemed satisfied.  But now it's got me thinking about maybe actually decorating the nursery this time.  With trucks.  That could be fun, right?

Shawn has decided that we need to name him Melvin William Homer.  Melvin W. Homer.  He'd be guaranteed to become an apostle with a name like that!  Haha.  Seems like perfect motivation for a name, right?  But... that is better than some of the names your mom has come up with... ("Justin Bieber Homer"???) We've pretty much banned either of them from having legitimate input on this baby's name.  It's for the best.  I'm sure you understand.

Baby 3.0 is now about the length of a carrot from head to heel and about 3/4 of a pound.  He's getting big!  Kessa keeps saying, "I think the baby will be born tomorrow."  And then we have to remind her that he's not coming until summer.  Until her birthday.  Which is still several months off.  She accepts it, then a few days later makes the same assertion.  Maybe she doesn't understand what "tomorrow" actually means?

He's been doing a number on my hip, though.  I'm not pleased with that.  I finally went into a chiropractor who adjusted me, then told me everything I need to change about my posture.  Like I can't sit on my legs (I might be doing that right now.  Don't tell!  IT'S HARD!!!!), or cross my legs at the knee.  I can't stand with all my weight on one leg.  I can't hold a child on my hip.  I can't sit for more than 20-30 minutes without taking a 3-5 min break to walk or stand.  I can't sit or kneel on the floor.  ("Get a low stool to sit on when you have to be down low.")  THIS GUY IS KILLING ME SLOWLY!  Try going to 5 hours of church (I had another ward conference today), two of which on a hard folding chair, and be comfortable with all of those restrictions.

(Interruption: Kessa just went to bed and less than 5 minutes later we heard talking.  So we turned on Dropcam and they're totally talking to each other.  Kessa is telling Abby that when she turns 8 she'll get the holy spirit, which is God, and she'll get a blessing, and she'll get baptized.  OH MY GOODNESS THESE GIRLS ARE SO CUTE!  I can't handle it.  And now Abby is singing Twinkle Twinkle.  But... we also want them to sleep.  So BJ's turning on the microphone to start singing to them.  I love this device.)

(Of course, now that I've bragged, they're both awake and trying to get Daddy to sing through the camera again and ... [sigh]  Now BJ is upstairs singing through the door, Kessa is trying to sleep, and Abby is standing on her bed trying to get Kessa's attention.  Thankfully, thus far, Kessa is ignoring her.)

(Ok, we'll end the bedtime commentary here.  Abby managed to find a box to boost herself up onto Kessa's bed and BJ's back in the room putting them back to bed.  Again.  So... clearly tonight isn't the best example of how awesome this arrangement is working at bedtime.  But all things require an adjustment period... right? :D)

Kiddisms

• Kessa: Daddy, could I learn something that’s hard for me? Because if I don’t, how will I ever learn?
  Solution: she’s now learning Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the piano.
• Me, in a moment of frustration: I feel like I'm doing all the chores myself. You used to want to help me, but now all you want do is screen time and games.
  Kessa: No. I like crafts, too.
• Kessa: You have to give me $15 and 100 quarters. Because that's how much it costs to buy my powers.
  Between magic from Frozen and buying things from Super Mario Galaxy, I think this girl has gotten some insane ideas.  Like the idea that we'd buy a lightsaber off of her so that we could "draw hearts in the dark".  I can't remember all her other magical powers.  There were many.  It was an entire evening of imagination.  I remember it changed her baked ziti into pizza and cheese sticks so that she'd want to eat it.  And it made her invisible at one point.  And she told us that if we stole her magic instead of buying it, she would never play with us again.
• Kessa: Daddy, why did you open the front door so coldly?!
• Kessa: Do you love Heavenly Father, even if he's in a house and there's a box outside? What if he has a sock on his head and can't see?

~ Tianna and Co.

Drunk Up

Jessa ~

This week I thought was going to be a lot more chill, but turned out to be busy anyway.  Haha.  Such is life, right?  Kessa had swimming lessons every evening, just as BJ got off work.  Bless him, he took her each night so I could do dinner ... or other things.  

Tuesday evening I had to get a babysitter for Abby while BJ had Kessa at the pool, because I went to the temple to be with one of my counselors who was being sealed to her recently-adopted 2-year old from China.  It was so sweet to be there.  (And fun fact: Jon Schmidt was there.  And my entire presidency, minus the one who knew him, were all star-struck and we acted like teenage groupies.  Even the one that could be my mother, age-wise.  Looking back it was a little embarrassing, but as all of us did it, it was also fun.  Hah!) And then right after that I had two stake meetings, so I didn't get home until well after the girls went to bed.

Kessa was quite proud of her trampoline tower.
But very upset that it wasn't "perfect"

Thursday I had to get a babysitter starting right after lunch because I was invited to wedding sealing for an old friend of mine, Taralyn (she was my roommate 5 times!) I was endowed in 2006 and this was my first sealing outside of my own I've attended!  Insane, huh?  (Now just to get you and your siblings and my brother to get married so I don't have to wait another 7-8 years...)  It was beautiful and I couldn't keep my eyes off of her, because she just looked So. Happy.  But the problem with having not spent much time with her over the last several years is that I didn't really know many people there.  And it was during the day so BJ couldn't come.  So I felt a little lonely.  But I attribute part of that to the fact that I drove around my old neighborhoods beforehand and I was feeling nostalgic and wistful even before the sealing.  And then I stayed down there and went to another friend's reception in Orem, so I drove around our old condo.  And then went to Travis' house and I hadn't been there for awhile.  And ran into an old neighbor at the reception.  Just so much nostalgia.  I guess it was just a little hard to handle all day, on my own.

Friday night my brother, Damian, and my dad came down on some carpet cleaning business, so we went out to dinner with them.  (Including Damian's three boys.)  Do you remember me raving about Cafe Paesan in Orem?  The Cafe Rio-style italian place?  Did I ever tell you it closed and how sad I was?  Well, turns out, they just changed their name to Wild Zucchini Grill and moved to American Fork!  Right by me!  Clearly they can't live without me and we're meant to eat there all the time.  ;)

Karl, the hamster, continues to be a hit with the girls

And then the week became blissfully peaceful. Though, we still managed to stay busy.  BJ taught Sunday School today and so many people told me he did a fantastic job.  I missed half of it, because it was another ward's ward conference today that I went to.  So I got 5 hours of church today.  But the last half of the class was really good.  He mostly raised questions and let people answer.  There was a lot of group discussion.  Which I love.  RS was the same.  Which was nice, because after I'd already been to 3 hours of church, it was nice to really enjoy the last two hours.

We got some new books for Christmas.  I may have told you about them?  They're the Little House on the Prairie, but written and illustrated for kids.  We got three of them.  The girls love them.  Abby especially.  There's one she's latched onto, called Winter Days in the Big Woods and she doesn't really let us read anything else these days.  Which surprises me, because it's a big paper book, and I thought she'd still be loving the board books more.  There's a page in there that says, "But the best time of all was at night, when Pa came home.  He would throw off his fur cap and coat and mittens and call, 'Where's my little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?' That was Laura, because she was so small."  Abby loves that page and because of it calls the book, "Drunk up."  It's funny when she wanders around to find it saying, "Drunk up?  Drunk up?"

Kessa's favorite part is when it talks about the work that belonged to each day.  Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, etc.  So we came up with our own list of daily chores.  She helped me.  We first went through their list to see what things we do the same, like washing clothes.  But there were a lot that we don't do, like churning butter or mending clothes, on a regular basis.  So then we substituted our own.  So here's our new list:

Wash girls' clothes on Monday

Gather and take out garbage on Tuesday

Organize toys on Wednesday

Clean the hamster cage on Thursday

Wash mom and dad's clothes on Friday

Vacuum on Saturday

Rest on Sunday

We've done everything from the garbage on, so far, except organizing toys. But that's because we started on Wednesday with garbage and didn't get both tasks done in one day.  Kessa has been surprisingly excited to help get everything done.  Wednesday was actually a really great day for her ego.  It started with taking out the trash.  It was her job to gather all the small garbages, dump them in a bigger garbage, then replace all the small liners (with grocery bags).  She did really well, but had a hard time opening the knots that we tied the bags into, so I did it for her.  At one point I put Abby down for a nap and by the time I got out, I found her studiously trying to figure out how to open a bag.  She tried it the way I showed her, but it wasn't working, so she figured out a different way!  She was so proud of herself.  She had no idea I was watching, but her grin was still huge.  And then she got up and emptied the trash and replaced the liner, then saw me.  It was a very proud moment for me.  And then later at Preschool they told me that she was almost done with the red books (which are the long vowel sounds) and we needed to buy the next set of books (which we did).  Both her teachers and the front desk ladies gushed over how well she was reading and how fast she was progressing.  I think we both beamed brighter than the sun for a moment.  She is just doing so great in so many ways.  I love it.

Kessa built 2 Lego towers, one for her and one for Abby.  She wanted to display them in her room, soon to be their room, but I convinced her that she needed to take them apart so we could play with those pieces again.  We compromised with a picture, so the towers could live on in memory.

I've been getting more and more into family history.  I still don't do it often, but when I do, I usually get sucked in for hours.  It's bad.  But Jessa, there are so many broken things out there that I can fix!  The latest one was my great-aunt that died last month.  Within days her temple work started being done in Brazil, but on a duplicate record.  Which is bad, because she hasn't even been dead a year yet!  So I had to contact the church to bring it to their attention.  (When I merged the two duplicates, it made it clear that this was Not Right.)  And to add some sadness to it, her brother promised he'd do her temple work, and if this work is considered legit, he won't be able to.  :(  So hopefully we get that all straightened out.  But the good news is, I fixed a lot of broken, have learned way more about my great-aunt than I ever did during her life, and everything I couldn't fix, I brought to the attention of someone who could.  Hooray!

Oh, and for part of Kessa's resting activities today, she wrote you a letter!  

Translation: Dear Jessa! I love you... We got a globe for Christmas. We found Cambodia on it ... it is vere [very] foor [far] away!

Kiddisms:

• I was dictating a Facebook comment to my phone, so I was saying the punctuation out loud.  When I finished Kessa looked up, grinned, and said, "Mommy, I love you.  Period."
• Me: There are still several things we need to do before the baby comes. Like figure out his name.
  Kessa: And get him trucks. And tractors.
• Me: Oooh. You can get a free 100th anniversary Sun-Maid e-book.
  BJ: Just what I've always wanted.
  Me: Maybe I'll get it for your birthday.
  BJ: Correction: Not what I always wanted.

Have a wonderful day!  Hugs and prayers,
~ Tianna and Co.

4 major things and however many minor things as I have time for

Jessa ~

I feel like the past week has been as eventful as the previous 3 weeks combined.  Oye.  So hopefully I get this to you on time this week.  Because you want to hear all our excitement.  (Which means you'd gosh darn better not rush out this week!  I had the whole blog written when you ran in and ran out!  We were just adding pictures!)

So, let me list the four major things first, then I'll go into more detail below.

1. Abby started sleeping in a toddler bed!
2. Kessa lost her first tooth!
3. We found out the gender of our baby!  (Haha.  I'm gonna make you wait till the detail paragraph below.  I'm so mean.  I know.)
4. We rather unexpectedly inherited a hamster.

Ok.  Onto details.

1. Abby started sleeping in a toddler bed!

We want to eventually move her into Kessa's room to free up the nursery for the new baby.  But we figured changing to a bed AND changing rooms at the same time might be a little overwhelming.  So we just took off the side of the crib and let her sleep on the toddler bed it made.  (Same as Kessa did.)  The first few naps/nights she would get up and wander and play for a long time, then come sit by the door and poke her fingers underneath, and then eventually start crying, usually saying something like, "All done, mommy!  All done."  But I found that if I sat outside her room and sang, she would calm down immediately and eventually fall asleep.  In front of the door sometimes.  Yeah... that's not a fire hazard, right?

One night BJ was putting Kessa to bed.  Which takes a bit of time these days.  I was downstairs sewing and was trying to finish so I could have the table cleaned off before some friends came over to play games.  And Abby started crying.  Of course.  Well, BJ's work gave us a toy called a DropCam for Christmas.  Did we tell you about that?  I don't think we did.  It's basically a small video camera that you can use as a baby monitor or a surveillance camera or whatever.  And you can see the video from your phone.  Awesome.  So I pulled out my phone, opened the DropCam app, saw her wandering around her room crying, so I turned on the microphone (yes, I can talk to her through the device) and started singing songs to her.  As soon as I started singing she immediately stopped crying and within a verse or two went and laid on her bed.  When I'd stop singing she'd start whimpering, so I would start singing again.  (Btw, it has infrared lights, so all she sees is three tiny red dots that aren't bright at all, and I can see her in the dark  Again, awesome.) The whole time I was singing, I was also measuring and cutting fabric. After about 5 or so minutes I stopped singing and she didn't whine.  So I turned off the microphone and watched her sleep while I sewed.

Jessa, we live in the future.

But since then she has done an awesome job of staying in her bed after we put her down and just going right to sleep.  I think it was just novelty the first few days and now she's like, "Yeah, it's cool that I can get down, but I really just want to sleep."  Which makes me happy because I feared it would be a rough transition, resulting in less sleep for us, and I'm already super exhausted and need extra sleep.  So yay for Abby!  I hope the transition to Kessa's room goes equally smoothly... [crosses fingers]

2. Kessa lost her first tooth!

Wednesday night BJ was helping Kessa brush her teeth and noticed that her bottom front tooth was loose.  And by loose I mean, about to fall out.  It almost laid flat down (when she'd let us wiggle it, which wasn't often).  Now, I did not expect her to start losing teeth for at least another year or two, so it hadn't even crossed my mind to prep her for such an eventuality.  (I googled it.  Average starts from 5-7 years old, but it's perfectly normal to start anywhere from 4-7.)  Kessa thrives on the known.  If we prep her for things, she does well.  If we don't prep her for things, there are tears.  Needless to say, there were tears.

Things she was afraid of/nervous about while it was loose:

• It would fall out while she slept.
• It hurt to eat.
• She didn't want to touch it, so she'd keep her tongue pulled back, resulting in drooling and a sore tongue.
• She was afraid of anyone else touching it.

Things she was afraid of happening after it fell out:

• She wouldn't be able to talk anymore.
• She wouldn't be able to eat anymore.

So basically she spent a lot of the next few days either being excited because her tongue touched her tooth and miraculously it didn't hurt! or crying because of any of the above.

Then Saturday she was eating a cake ball when it fell out in her mouth.  She freaked out and started whining.  We've been trying to work with her about talking when she wants something instead of just whining or grunting or pointing, so BJ tried to get her to use her words, but clearly she couldn't, so she just spit the whole thing out on the table, and there was her tooth.  So BJ hollered for me and I came in and immediately noticed there was blood pooling up where the tooth was (which is what I remember most about my teeth falling out... cold washcloths in my mouth to stop the blood), so I ran up, got a washcloth wet, and ran back down to give it to her.  She was still freaking out and wouldn't take the washcloth out for like 15 mins or more, even though I offered her a popsicle instead!  And once the bleeding stopped, she still turned down the popsicle because "it's not bleeding anymore!  I don't need it."  (On the one hand, what the heck child is this!?  On the other hand, way to go child of mine!)

Now that it's out she's super excited about it and likes showing off the lack of tooth to everyone.  Though, just tonight she came down from brushing her teeth to show me a new tooth is coming in!

Funny story, though.  Back story: I made her a tooth pillow.  It's not quite done yet, so no pictures.  Next week.  Hopefully.  But it makes it way easier for the tooth fairy to find the tooth and put money in it.  Digging under pillows?  Bad idea.  So I took Kessa to the store and she picked out fabric and lace and embroidery thread for her name and everything.  It's cute.  And loud.  Bright pink.  Anyway, so BJ put her to bed and helped her put her tooth in the pillow (it has a pocket on it).  Later we were going to bed and I got ready first, so I figured I'd do the deed.  I walked into her room, it was pitch black, and I didn't want to wake her up while searching for the pillow, so I came back.  The following conversation ensued between BJ and I:

• Me: I just went to play Tooth Fairy, but it occurred to me that I have no idea where the tooth pillow is. 
• BJ: It's tucked under a blanket on Abby's [future] bed. 
• Me: Ah. I never would have guessed that. Thanks. 
• BJ: Watch out for the jump rope. 

It was stretched across her room, tied to her bed and stuck in a dresser drawer on the other end. Never thought my first night as a tooth fairy I'd be booby trapped.

3. We found out the gender of our baby!

Any guesses before I just tell you?  If you did, let me know if you were right or not.  But... we're having a boy!  Insane, I know, right?  I don't know how to do boys.  He'd better have BJ's temperament if we're supposed to have more than 3 kids.  I don't know if I could do more than two with the energy of Abby in a row.  Yipes!

No names yet.  Remind me what my off-limits boy names are?  I can't promise not to take from the list, but I'll try "to not to."

I'm 19 weeks now, and the ultrasound confirmed that.  So we're still looking at late-May, but probably early-June.

4. We rather unexpectedly inherited a hamster.

So remember last year at the Homer Christmas party when your family brought a live mouse?  The tradition continues and this year Barbara brought a live hamster.  This time, though, it had been a pet that they were done with.  Megan and Tyler's boy got it and Tyler was very clear that if it stayed with them, it wouldn't be alive when they got home.  And no one would steal it from him!  I was near the last, and fearing for its life, I stole the poor guy.  I figured I could offer it up on our neighborhood Facebook page and give him to someone who wanted him.  But when Kessa realized it was ours, she was ecstatic.  So we told her that if she'll take care of it, we'll keep him. But if she stops being responsible, we'll give him to someone who will be.  Oh, his name is Carl.  Karl?  Maybe we should do Karl to fit in the family?

So far he mostly just sleeps in the corner of his cage and runs around whenever the girls talk us into letting him run around in the hamster ball.  I have yet to see it, though.  Today after church we had a babysitter because I had to go to a ward conference and BJ had tithing.  And I guess Kat (the babysitter) let the hamster run up and down Kessa's arms.  She must have experience with pets like this.  I do not.  But Kessa loved it.  I fear it escaping and going to live in my couch.  I guess I'll have to get used to the guy.  But so far he's fitting in well enough.


Ok... done with major things.  Quick list of minor things because you're online!

Your dad got ordained a patriarch today!  That's not minor in and of itself, of course.  But I assume your parents will go into more detail for you.  But it's exciting!  Did you know that even when he's no longer actively serving as patriarch, he can still give blessings to his direct descendants for the rest of his life?  That's cool.

Kessa's taking swimming lessons again. There's a girl in her class named Jessa and she has long dark hair.  Go figure!

Kessa has almost learned my phone number for a Joy School goal.  She's also done an excellent job of staying dry in order to earn Peach coins, that I don't have time to describe in detail, but they give her Wii time to play Mario Galaxy.


Kessaisms

• Kessa, “It's kind of sad that Jesus died, isn't it? But then it's happy because he came alive again after three days!"
• Kessa: Make sure it’s colorful.

  BJ: Colorful?
  Kessa: I mean brown.

And with that, I bid you adieu!  In the hopes that you'll actually get this while you're still there this time.  Toodles!

~ Tianna