A week of no pictures

Unfortunately, all I have for this week is a narrative. The eventful moments of the week were either not picture-worthy, or I just forgot my camera.

The week started out fairly plainly... I made lunch for mom and dad and taught my piano lessons on Monday.

Tuesday was a big house cleaning day since Dawna's Joyschool was canceled. Wednesday I walked to music makers with my kids, then came home and did some more cleaning... ooh yay... My poor kids by Wednesday evening were pretty fed up with their mom... I just wanted all the living space to be clean and of course that's where they wanted to play all day... their own rooms just weren't going to cut it for some reason... but I kept trying to herd them out of the living room and into their own rooms where the train table, the play kitchen, the bookshelf and the toy box/slide are. You'd think all those things would keep them out of my "clean" areas, but not so much...

Anyway, Thursday was exciting. I got the kids up earlier than usual and drove them over to Glenmoor Elementary to see the school play. I had a couple piano students in the play along with some young friends from Glenmoor ward. They performed "The Fairy Tale of Sleeping Beauty." It was pretty much exactly what you'd expect if you've seen the Disney version, but with different names. Dawna Loved seeing all the "beautiful dresses" for the costumes and enjoyed the singing and Dancing. Lawrence did quite well considering how long the play was. Overall it was fairly cute, but I totally rolled my eyes when they presented the "moral" of the story: "Be careful who you DON'T invite to your party!" (Since, you know, the witch put the spell on Sleeping Beauty in the first place because she was angry about not being invited to her birthday celebration... duh... )

After the play, we came home, ate lunch... and then... Larry Pooped on the Potty! Woo hoo! (sorry I don't have a picture of THIS! haha...) I'm pretty sure it was just a lucky moment that I found him when he was trying to hide in a corner to do his business, but still, it put me in a good mood for the rest of the day... In fact, I was in such a good mood that while I took the car to get the tires rotated, I walked Dawna and Larry to Wendy's for french fries. After the fries, we walked to visit Becca and baby Aiden while we waited for the car to be done.

Later in the evening, I drove over to San Carlos to pick up Jon from work (he had taken the bus in the morning). Pogo had provided lunch and there were enough leftovers for us to enjoy dinner as well :) We got to meet a couple of Jon's co-workers who were also there late and see Jon's cubicle and everything! I realized he's been working there almost a year, and I haven't been up to see his office. We've met a couple times for lunch on the campus over there, but I had never seen his office or anything... pretty lame... I'm pretty sure I should take a more active interest in his work... maybe...

Friday we stayed up late watching a lot of West Wing with Brooke... we had arrived at the end of Season 1, and for all of you West Wing fans out there, you know you can't stop at the last episode of season 1... you have to start season 2 right away so as not to be driven crazy by the cliffhanger...

Saturday my visiting teacher, Allisen, threw me a baby shower. I thought it was awfully nice of her considering that this is my third child... We got a new carseat (the one we had for Dawna and Larry was in horrible shape, so we threw it out after Larry moved to forward facing), lots of diapers and wipes (always useful!) and a few new pink outfits! And there was such good food! Pasta salad, Caesar salad, Chinese chicken salad, home-made rolls, deviled eggs, shortcake... yum! It's always good when the Relief Society sisters are cooking :) Both grandmas were able to make it to the shower along with lots of friends from Bayside and Glenmoor Centerville wards. Unfortunately... no pictures... my mother-in-law and Becca both got good pictures... I"ll have to get some from them...

After the shower, Jon and I started a long and painfully disappointing journey that ended with yet another week of no car :(. It was SO NOT FUN to get almost there and then get a call saying something had gone wrong and the car wasn't going to be drivable for another couple days... yuck... On the up-side, I got to spend a bit of much needed one-on-one time with my best friend. We listened to NPR and commented on the stories; we chatted and joked and held hands... our friend Sarah was already watching the kids for the afternoon and evening, so then we went shopping together, too. Amazing! It was like having no kids for a day! Woah! Almost forgot what that feels like...

and then there was Sunday... the choir did the Easter presentation today, which was awesome! I got to play flute with a couple songs and Dawna sang with the primary in Sacrament meeting for her fist time! She's a true Severson when it comes to singing... she belts out and almost yells every word she knows... and a few she's unsure of... and then basks in the glory of the compliments from the primary chorister :) After church was dinner with Nana and Papa and the Wightmans, and now it's off to bed...

Unfortunately... I'm having a hard time sleeping with this 36-week belly here... not that I'm not tired... it's just pretty impossible to get comfy in any position at all... that's probably why I'm making this picture-less blog go on for so long... putting off going to bed just to toss and turn for a while when I wish I could sleep... oh... poor me :) Any veteran moms out there know any late-pregnancy sleeping tricks? Probably reading this post from start to finish will put me to sleep... I'll give that a try :)

Springtime!

Over the past week, it's been warm and toasty outside! The sun has been shining almost every day this week and many exciting and fun things indicate that spring is there!

Springtime is when we often celebrate new life. I had a chance to do just that with my good friend Becca, who had her baby last Saturday. He has perfect skin just like his mama and makes the perfect addition to their family and our "Riviera 15" group of roommate kids :) She let us come see her in the hospital on Sunday... when we got there we realized we were just one in a line of many visitors she had. Hopefully it wasn't too tiring to have so many people come visit...
On Thursday, my WHS friend Ginger and her daughter Izzy came by for lunch. We ate and enjoyed... and then she brought out something very special for the girls: painting crafts! I'm not as crafty as a lot of moms, so it's a special treat for my kids to be able to paint. Dawna and Larry and Izzy had a great time painting butterflies, birdhouses, shirts... and themselves...

Consequently, they had a "run through the sprinklers" session after completing their painting projects (notice Larry's conspicuous absence... he's still no fan of water flying in his face):Yesterday, with the continuation of good weather, we headed over to Birch Grove park and with the slight breeze, let out kites fly high! Dawna has been dying to do this for a really long time! Jon won the prize for keeping his kite up the longest...


...but Dawna won the prize for having the most fun! She flew her kite sitting, standing, and walking around!

Larry wins the prize for flying a kite without even looking at it :)
And I win the prize for being the least likely to be carried away by a kite:
This is week 34... as of today, I'm at week 35! So close! Hey! Nesting is yet another springtime activity! Sweet! Has spring sprung anywhere else in the country? Or are most of my siblings still deep in snow?? :)

Oregon ups (and downs)

This last week my friend Sarah and I went to visit Aaron and Emily! It was a blast! All three kids were great in the car the whole time and we loved seeing their cute little townhome. Dawna and Adele enjoyed a very happy reunion filled with lots of dress-ups and pretending to be puppies and being loud at the dinner table... I brought some matching clothes for Dawna and Adele (and actually their cousin Hannah has a matching outfit, too)

On Thursday, we took a short road trip up to Union Creek to let the kids play in the snow. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for Dawna. In Joyschool, we talked about nature and season and weather. She's been wanting to see the snow SO badly and even asks if we can move to a place like Hannah's house (where they get snow in the backyard-I guess she remembers from last April...)

So, upon arrival in the snow, we bundled her up (thanks to many generous friends who let us borrow snow clothes) and she immediately began to eat the snow ("It turns into water in your tummy!" she says) Then we walked to the meadow/pavilion/amphitheater place and Dawna (with some instruction from her snow-experienced cousin Adele) plopped down and made several snow angels:
Then, as per so many stories and songs she knows, we built a little snowman. Dawna and Adele had a good time finding leaves and sticks for eyes and arms and then (Emily was so prepared) they added a carrot stick for a nose! So perfect!

Most of the time, Larry preferred staying under cover and climbing on the picnic tables.
...but we did get him to sled down the little hill a couple of times with me or Dawna. I know he'd never admit it, but I know he was having fun doing this!
I like this picture of Lawrence and me because you can't EVEN tell I'm 34 weeks pregnant! And see??? He's standing in the snow and smiling at the same time :)
And Dawna and I getting ready to go down the hill:
She didn't want to take a picture, she just wanted to GO!

Later that day, Em and I went to Costco to drop off a car for Aaron. He had a minute and gave me an eye exam! It was so cool! Aaron... I mean... Dr. Severson clearly is one of the best in his field. Confident and kind and very knowledgeable. It was seriously awesome! And I have 20/20 vision :)

The three girls ate out both nights--Chinese food in Ashland one night and pizza and ice cream the next night. Hey--we're all pregnant, we can eat what we want!

Unfortunately the drive home was not so.... uneventful... Apparently, somebody left a moving dolly (aka hand truck) in the middle of I-5 and unfortunately, we ran over it... those don't go smoothly under cars going 65 mph, in case you needed to know... so after a call to CHP, a tow truck, and a rental car, we finally got home... but our car is still in Redding getting fixed... and we should be able to ride up with mom and dad this weekend (as they are going to visit them) to pick it up... yay... not the most fun ending to our trip, but we made it...

Still, I'm so glad we went and we all had a great time! Thanks Aaron and Em for being such good hosts!

Chores for a toddler.

Since Larry is two, he has two jobs to do: Put his own dirty clothes in his hamper and put the silverware away. He seems to really enjoy both of them; however, only the latter is cute to watch. He's loved doing the silverware for a while now... my sister says since he's good at sorting forks, knives, and spoons, he'll be a good reader! Let's hope so :)