Hiking Sycamore Canyon with the Fam

One of the best things about living here is our fantastic weather. Last weekend was beautiful so we went for a family hike in Sycamore Canyon with Grandma and Grandpa. Not many leaves change colors during the fall so it was fun to be in the canyon where we could see some yellow leaves. I know, I know. It's December and our "fall" is finally here. 

We're having crazy, rainy weather today so don't be too jealous all you family in freezing places. Although you're all probably having snow so maybe you're jealous of our rain. 


Grandma was trying to get Penny and Ginger to smile naturally for the photo so she was telling them an interesting story. Ginger paid no attention to the story and gave her cheesy, typical smile while Penny got too sucked into the unusual details of Grandma's story.

 

Ginger, like her Grandpa Keller, loves examining and collecting rocks. She is always filling her pockets with rock treasures.

How can you resist Jake's smile?! He's still mostly my favorite child. We can't get enough of this kid.

Grandma's two new knees did a fantastic job while she was hiking. Penny and Ginger love that Grandma can go for hikes with us again. 

Grandpa surprised us with some delicious chocolate covered peppermint oreos and that's how we got the girls to pose for the picture. There's not much you can't get a Lovstedt girl to do for some chocolate.  

Jake's superpower

I found out what Jake's superpower is recently. Apparently anger is what triggers it. Which, as it turns out, is pretty common for the early stages of superpower development. He can transform from a cute little baby into a baby seal. Watch the transformation:


I'm not sure how he'll use this power, but I think it could be exciting.

Alternatively, he may also just be a really talented gymnast.

Though not a Chinese one.

Happy Wednesday

Penny got to wear a costume to pre-school this morning. She was a witch. Ginger of course needed some kind of costume also, even though she wasn't going to school. I have the cutest girls.

My favorite child

A friend took some cute pictures of Jake last week. I know he's older than most newborn photo shoots but he was still so cute. His smile is to die for. I'm sure every mother feels that way about her baby. He is, by far, my favorite child right now. His sisters are really making me crazy.

First Day of Preschool

I find myself in this weird, unfamiliar phase of life: I have three kids. I drive a minivan littered with crayons and dirty, unmated socks and sippy cups. I own a house that has a million unfinished projects. All my clothes have unsightly stains or pulled seams from being washed too many times. My laundry pile seems to never end. Even when I spend all day doing laundry, there's a another pile at the end of the day. Food crumbs are everywhere: the couch, the car, the floor, the girls' beds. Despite the "food up to the table only" rule, it's amazing how I find it everywhere! 

And, now I have a preschooler. When did Penny get old enough to go to preschool? I cried on our way to the school thinking about how fast she was growing up. I can't believe she'll be four next week. It feels like she was just born. (I probably said the exact same thing when I was writing about Ginger's 2nd birthday.) But seriously, why do they have to grow up so fast? 

As I pulled into the parking lot driving my Honda Odyssey, I noticed the two Odysseys in front of me and the two behind me, all with parents waiting to drop off their preschoolers. I sat there and cried for a brief minute. In my minivan. Probably in denial. We've had this minivan for five months and I'm still having a hard time accepting it. It's a great car but I still can't believe it's what I drive. Weird.

As we were getting out of the car Penny said to me, "Don't worry, Mom. I won't be gone for very long. You can have fun with Ginger and Jake while I'm at school." Thanks. Apparently she could tell I was having a hard time.

When we picked Penny up, I asked her how it went. "I had a lot of fun at school. I drew a picture but I didn't bring it home because I gave it to Ms. Ida because we have too many pictures at our house already."

This is Ginger smiling. I know. It's a shame, especially since her natural smile is so cute.

Happy Birthday, Ginger

Ginger turned 2 a week or so ago. I swear she was just born. I think Penny was more excited about her birthday than Ginger was. Penny kept clapping and singing "Happy Birthday" all day to Ginger. Then, when it came time to blow out the candles, Penny couldn't stand it. After Ginger's failed attempt the first time to blow them out, Penny jumped up in her chair and blew them out before Ginger could even try again. Fortunately Ginger just clapped excitedly, she didn't care who blew out the candles.

Her birthday was on a Sunday so I tried to get some cute pictures of the girls before we left for Church. These are the best I got.

 

Later, we had a little birthday celebration. Stephan made a hunormous (that's Penny's word for huge and ginormous) sea urchin birthday cake. A little random for a 2-year-old's birthday but I guess it's similar to the b-earth day cake he made for Penny's birthday last year. Not many children can say their dads decorate their birthday cakes.

(These last two photos were taken with a film camera so they're a bit grainy. Who knows how old the film was.)

Smiley Jake

Jake has the cutest little smile these days. Unfortunately it's hard to catch it on camera but you still get the idea.

Photo of the day

Life at the Lovstedts

It seems like this photo sums up our lives the past few weeks.

Jake is a good eater and he's got the chubby cheeks to prove it. I have no idea why my babies get so cute and fat so quickly. Maybe my milk is packed full of fat from all the carbohydrates and sugar I eat. He's four weeks old today and I'm amazed at how fast the time has passed. 

Jake earlier today after pigging out on a delicious lunch.

This is Jake two weeks ago, so sweet and little. I recognize he's wrapped in the same pink blanket in both pictures. He does have some boy blankets, just not that many. It's unfortunate that he happens to be in this blanket both times I decided to take his picture.

Here's what the girls have learned in the last month. In case you can't tell, their dollies are getting a little bit of breast milk.

We had a watercolor craft yesterday. Penny wanted to paint a picture for her Aunt Amanda who went into the MTC today. (My sister will be heading off to Kentucky after spending several weeks in the MTC learning Spanish.) After they finished their paintings, they slipped away to their room and painted a "mural" on their bedroom wall. I was feeding Jake and knew it was awfully quiet but couldn't really get up to check on them. And besides, I was enjoying the peace and quiet. When I finally went into their room, they had painted all over their walls. Fortunately it was just watercolor paint but still. Penny had watched a TV show in the morning about a girl who painted a mural on her bedroom wall and I remember thinking as they were watching the show that this could end up bad...

Ginger contentedly painting on a piece of paper before her sister convinced her to move on to bigger canvases. 

Another time while I was feeding Jake, Penny and Ginger cut up some paper into a million pieces. Penny said she was making signs for Daddy. Then, she found some tape and managed to tape up a few of her tiny "signs" to the wall and the front door before I could intervene.

And during yet another feeding for Jake, Penny used the same aforementioned tape to make a "puppy house" for Ginger. Notice it's not just your basic scotch tape. Apparently packing tape seemed like just the thing she needed. Here, Penny's looking slightly remorseful about her afternoon project but Ginger clearly is appreciative of the puppy house. Penny had wrapped the tape around the table legs multiple times and covered the entire top of the table with tape. (They'd just showered, in case you were wondering.)

Poor baby Jake

Ginger gets pretty excited about Jake. Here she's getting ready for bed and wanted to give Jake a good night kiss. (Don't worry, she did go to bed with pajamas on.) It started out all sweet and loving with Stephan taking a picture of Ginger kissing her baby brother.

 

Then, so quickly it turned into this. Ginger's intensity is hard to anticipate. I guess that's a common trait of an almost two-year-old. As I look at this picture, it appears that I'm idly looking on while Jake cries out in fear or pain, or both. In my defense, I'm sure I was trying to calmly talk Ginger down from her craziness.

Welcome, Jake!

 Jake Mathias was born Wednesday! He has the same birthday as his Aunt Julie. He's really cute and sleeps a lot, for which we're grateful. He seems to be pretty mellow but it's hard to tell, newborns sleep so much anyways. His sisters love him, mostly. Penny is constantly begging to hold him but Ginger, on the other hand, tries to climb into my lap before I can get ready to feed Jake. Ginger gets this concerned look on her face whenever he cries and points excitedly at him. Penny likes to tell him to be brave while we're changing his diaper. It's very sweet.

We're all healthy and the delivery went fantastic, as far as deliveries go. I labored for a few hours at home in the early hours of the morning and then Grandpa came and got the girls at about 6:30 a.m. and we were to the hospital soon after 7 a.m. I had my epidural by 8:30 and then Jake was born at 10:23 a.m. July 28.

We can't believe he's here. It feels "all of a sudden," which probably sounds weird because we've had 9 months to get used to the idea. We've been so busy and distracted that the time has past incredibly quickly. Maybe it has more to do with this idea that the older we get, the faster time seems to pass.

Our first picture as a family of five! It's so crazy that I have three kids, am I really old enough?!

My cute mud girls

Penny and Ginger made mud cookies yesterday. It brought back some fun childhood memories. I look at these pictures and I can't believe how big Penny is looking. And, check out how long her hair is these days. We can finally do some legitimate pony tails and little braids.

Greetings...

You know how when you get so far behind in something that you start avoiding it because you don't know where to begin? Like laundry, or journal writing or scripture study? That's how I feel about this blog. Here's a list of what we've been up to during the last few months.

1. We bought a house! We bought a fixer-upper because that's all we could afford out here in California. It was two bedrooms and we made it three bedrooms and put new floors in. You'd think building one wall and taking down a few others would be easy enough. Ha! We would never have been able to accomplish as much as we have without the help of so many friends. It's unbelievable how much time our friends and family spent helping us. Seriously, the amount of help we got is straight from an Ensign article about charity and Christlike service. It's been a humbling experience to receive so much help.

The house is cute and we love it. I think we're both tired of working on the house and are anxious to be "done" at some point in the future. My definition of "done" included loads of things that I'm beginning to scratch off my list just to have some peace in our life. We'll post more pictures later.

2. I'm pregnant again. We're having a baby boy and I'm due August 4, which makes me 36 weeks. We don't have a name for him yet. We have a few names that we both like but nothing that we love. I think choosing a name for your child is an agonizing process, there's so much responsibility.

Penny loves to talk about the baby brother. One day, there was only one Oreo cookie left and I ate it instead of giving it to Penny or Ginger. I told Penny the baby needed it and she was suddenly okay with me not sharing, as long as it was for the baby. I know, I'm a mean mom.


3. Penny just finished taking a swim class and it was traumatic for her. Above you see Penny crying while her teacher looks away with a blank stare. The poor guy had no idea what to do with her. That's Ginger on the side, waving encouragement to Penny and longing to be in the water. The sad irony is that while Penny would scream from the pool, Ginger would cry from the pool side begging to get in. Too bad I couldn't swap Penny out and throw Ginger in the water in her place.

She's not as fearless and brave as her dad had hoped. Unfortunately it looks like she's on the same track as her mother—the fearful, worrisome type who thinks about things too much and then is afraid to try. Stephan hopes it's just a phase, but I'm 30 and still have similar mental issues. Although, for the record, I can swim and am not afraid of the water, just the open ocean.

The picture on the left is on the first day of class, before Penny realizes that they'll actually be getting in the water. She failed her class and will have to repeat the Seahorses level before continuing.

4. We moved the girls into bunk beds. I thought it'd be a much easier transition than it's been. Penny was of course elated to move to the top bunk. She kept saying over and over that she was growing up and that's why she could sleep "up high." Ginger also was excited to be in the bunk bed, but I think only because of the freedom it offered from her crib. It's been a real battle convincing her to stay in the bed at nap time. I think we're finally beginning to win the battle, although it's been a long few weeks.



5. Now that we have a house, we have a backyard and we love playing outside. The girls love swinging in the hammock with their dad.

Penny the ballerina

Penny's been in a pre-ballet class at the community center for the last eight weeks. I think the word "pre" should be emphasized in the class's description. Yesterday was the class presentation and it was hilarious. As silly as the performance was, I felt so emotional watching Penny all grown up and in a little ballet class kicking her legs with her classmates. It was so cute!

California Winter Love

I know this post will sound like bragging to many of our family in far away freezing places. I'll apologize in advance.

Here's what last weekend looked like for us.

We started the day out by driving past the freshly harvested sod fields. Notice the snow on the mountains in the background? After all, it is wintertime.

We arrived at the beach where Penny collected sea shells and dug in the sand with her friends. Ginger ate sand-covered Cheerios and tried to crawl face first into large puddles of water. Stephan taught Penny to jump rope with a long piece of sea weed. She never quite got the hang of it.





Then, we drove past the ripening strawberry fields to visit Stephan's parents.


Penny and Stephan picked limes and tangerines in grandma and grandpa's backyard. Penny and Ginger had a refreshing citrus snack after the harvest. Penny loves teaching me how to peel a tangerine. She's so proud of herself. I can't believe how many of those things she can eat in one sitting. Maybe 10? She loves the fresh oranges and tangerines.