Shoreline Highway

We drove along the coast on Hwy 1 from Fort Bragg all the way down to Point Reyes. It was about 4 hours of curvy road with breathtaking views. We saw three lighthouses along the way--Point Cabrillo, Point Arena (where they shot the lighthouse proposal scene with Mel Gibson in "Forever Young" and we climbed the 145 steps), and Point Reyes lighthouse (and climbed down all the steps to it and walked back to the car on a cliff in the fog). Very cool scenic drive and stops. Also stopped for burgers at Grandpa Lehmans diner (it's closed--has KFC a block away in view of nice security guard), saw Christmas lights at Oakland Temple, found childhood home of Ross's mother (.4 mile from the temple), drive over Bay Bridge and stayed at Travelodge in South San Francisco. Unforgettable adventures. Church this morning, butterflies this afternoon and home tonight.

Hold onto your oranges!

Very scenic drive yesterday and the roads were curvy. I had a bag of clementines on my lap that I was peeling for consumption and we hit a big curve and off they flew: "Hold onto your oranges," came from Ross.

Do bad things come in threes? Car battery dead, stroller wheel snapped off at the Founder's Grove hike, and microwave burned out when Ross was trying to pop popcorn. We're still having a good time and making memories. We had pizza and watched cable last night. It's pouring rain right now. We are going to have breakfast, hike in Rockefeller Forest and head to to the Russian Gulch fern hike on the coast. Indoor swimming pool tonight, here we come!

Playing Hooky From Thanksgiving

We enjoyed turkey leftovers last night and pie for breakfast. Now we're off and on our way to the Avenue of the Giants. We passed a pretty lake and Alpine area and we've picnicked in the van. Emma is eager to see Ewoks in the forest we are about to explore. Luckily today is 60 and sunny. The rest of the weekend will be rainy.

Packing for the Trip and Two Month Summary

We had fun last night and I didn't take a single picture. "Too busy livin' in the moment" is what Ross calls that! We had four options of pizza from Dominos (the bread bites were the favorite), Shelly brought two salads and several beverage options and we had five choices of pie. The kids played very well together--with different games and toys. The keyboard and balloon volleyball seemed to be the favorite activity while the adults chatted.

Today I'm packing for our Thanksgiving trip. (I think I'll put Return of the Jedi on so we can see some Ewoks to inspire us as we're visiting the same area those scenes from the movie were filmed). I've got three mountain piles of clean clothes to pack from and a pile of duffle bags to sort the items into--two outfits, Sunday clothes, pajamas, swim stuff, diapers, and extras. I will clean out the car and make a batch of Chex Mix to take with us. I also need to pack a food box, a book box and a triple stroller, pack 'n play and toddler backpack carrier.

Ross and I were talking this morning and started listing off all the things that have happened just since October: two Thanksgiving parties (a pie night and a turkey night), 2 picture appointments, 4 dentist appointments and a new crown in the works, two ward dinner parties, a primary program, a primary practice, painting walls to cover up marker mishap, one all-nighter, three birthdays with outings like mini golf, Halloween festivities, Ross's workload (60 page memo, 30 page memo, 30 page opinion 10 page dissent), haircuts, 5 doctor appointments, trip to Seattle, chess class, visit from Grandma and Grandpa, two holes in the wall, one night up until 3am, three Young Women lessons, Elders Quorum lesson, 7 flu shots, parent-teacher conferences,... and probably a few more I'm not remembering right now. No wonder why things have felt so hectic! And it's not even December yet :)

Night Owl

Here's Mr. All-Nighter. We think he's pretty awesome.

Kids have enjoying their series from the library. It's nice having school off all week. We've been cleaning the house for company. Jane has been an excellent vacuumer. Excited about pizza and pie tonight with the Parkers. I made two fresh chocolate and banana cream ones.

Grooming Day on Monday

The day started off with pie for breakfast!, something we did the day after Thanksgiving when I grew up. Later kids had their hair and nails trimmed and their ears cleaned. I also organized our double desk upstairs (looks totally different!), put dishes away, and did some other organizing around the house. Abby made a petition for a Slumber Party which was a little amusing. Kids also read and watched some videos from the library.

Thanksgiving Feast on Sunday

3am is when we turned out the light on Saturday. While Ross was up working I was getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast. After we said our prayers we joked how we were going to have a "Jill-length nap" to start the next day.

I had to be at church at 8:30 to run through the choir number and we had to take two cars anyway because Ross had a Sunday School Presidency meeting after church. I taught the Young Women lesson again on self-reliance and I was a little frustrated with some extra girlie chattiness which soon melted away when a beehive gave me a plate full of cookies and a card as a "thank-you". I was shocked.

I took the kids home and we started to get the house and food ready for the feast. When Ross got home he rearranged furniture (giving us a LONG table) which gave me a little extra motivation to work fast so I could make it to half of choir. Our feast was yummy and went well, minus getting the burners mixed up at one point. The menu included turkey, crock pot mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, crinkle-cut carrots, pasta salad, green bean casserole, cranberries with sauce, rolls, and 5 kinds of pie--peanut butter, key lime, dutch apple, peach, coconut cream and pumpkin cheesecake. We had fully loaded plates, played a round of Apples to Apples (Allen and Max were the champions), had a course of pie and then played a round of HedBanz. The girls loved acting out the cards. It was fun to have Uncle Paul, Marie, Max, Claire and Rob come and eat with us. Having Thanksgiving early means leftovers this week! Kind of nice celebrating it a tad early.

Matching Shirts

I was up until 1:30am last night. I woke up to a bouncing beach ball. Ugg.

Ross has been cramming in work, madly trying to finish an assignment before next week. He said he feels like he's back in law school again working on a writing assignment.

While he's been working (all day), I took the kids to the library (they were AWFUL! I carried out one screaming twin, put her on a bench by the front door, went back in--you could hear the one outside loud and clear--to grab the other twin who was screaming and then there was an older sister who started the whole thing and pulled her outside to "babysit" the screamers out of doors so I could check out our books-- the whole collection minus one of Unfortunate Event series for Abby and three Percy Jackson for Allen. Heck, it's Thanksgiving break week so they will have plenty of time to read and that means the TV won't be on as much and the younger ones will play more). We also stopped at Walmart (still not great, but it was quick and we didn't stand out so much--good tip for next time: wear a hat when you do errands. Why? So you can easily block stares from other people and parent how you want without seeing your gaping audience).  

This afternoon I've played Betty Crocker and made four pies (hope to put together three more tonight), two batches of crescent rolls, and did other prep work for tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast. The kids were in and out helping, observing and playing together. I pulled out my She-ra dolls and castle and the twins have been preoccupied with that. Allen and Abby were reading most of the afternoon.

After dinner and baths, Ross took a break to take older two to Krispie Kreme for their Glazed for A's program--for every "A" on their report card they get a free glazed donut. When they got home they each gave me one from their box after Daddy encouraged them to reward Mommy for helping them succeed in school. Too bad I didn't take a picture of them coming home in their pajamas and coats and wearing Krispie Kreme hats on their heads. You'll just have to trust me that it was stylin'.

And today Jill and I wore matching shirts--didn't try to and Ross dressed her before he saw what I was wearing. I guess Ross and I are thinkin' alike today.

Off to make more pies!

So that's where they went!

• Went to the dentist last night and had my crown prep work done on my back molar on the bottom, right side. Temporary put on. New tooth in two weeks. I'll have to chew carefully. (The year we went to Bentonville for Thanksgiving in 2012 I also had a temporary crown put on right before Thanksgiving and it came out! Had to wait several days to get into the dentist's chair again.)
• Allen went to bed early last night because he wasn't feeling well. Wonder if he'll make it to school.
• We have storytime today.
• Excited for smashburger and a movie for tonight's date at home.
• Already thinking of which pies to have for Sunday. Mmm.
• Abby said her and Stella were friends again. What caused the falling out? Stella said she had a boyfriend or wanted one and Abby told her you can't have a boyfriend until college. (I don't remember telling her that but she's very wise.)
• We've been enjoying some rain the last two days.
• I have been working on my YW combined lesson for December. I'm using Elder Bednar's talk "Come and See" and started putting together DVD gifts for girls to distribute.
• While I was running the train set with Jared and Jill yesterday in the toy room I noticed four Willow Tree figurine sets in the Little People house. So that's where they went! Makes me laugh as I think of Jane and Emma carrying them down the stairs. I was probably sitting with Allen while he did his homework while they did their rearranging.

Foggy Drive

Ross took Allen to chess class today (it's before school) and then I loaded up three girls an hour later into the van. Kids were excited about the fog. We stopped at a friend's home to borrow their toddler backpack carrier--we plan to venture into the redwoods on Thanksgiving! Finally got the decorations up yesterday and everyone got excited. Our favorite decoration is the Thanksgiving village.

We've got plans everyday Thanksgiving week:

Sunday--Thanksgiving dinner at our house with Lehmans

Monday--annual FHE where we make our "turkey hands"

Tuesday--Pizza 'n Pie with Parkers

Wednesday--pack for trip

Thursday--Redwoods in Humboldt

Friday--More redwoods and Russian Gulch State Park

Saturday--Point Reyes Lighthouse and California coast

Sunday--Bay area ward, Santa Cruz Butterfly preserve and Oakland temple lights

Today's To-Do: vacuum 2nd level rooms, organize to-do list, write outlines for Sunday's lesson and combined lesson in two weeks as well as prepare "Joy to the World" DVDs and goodies for the girls to give away as a challenge to "invite", pick kids up early (I love that all week I don't have to pack them a lunch--they just come home and we all eat and then Jill goes down for her nap), homework and chores, watch neighbor boy, prepare dinner, feed kids early, head to the dentist to for a crown prep (another one of my large fillings in the back has cracked in two places, luckily it doesn't hurt though. Nice to be able to get it fixed), put house back together, sewing project with episode, run through piano piece, and hopefully read a few pages.

Raindrops On My Head

We tried to walk to school even though it was barely sprinkling. In only a few minutes the rain came down harder. We turned around, went home and climbed into the van. After dropping the kids at school we came home, vacuumed all the main level rooms, rearranged the toy room and created a book nook in the living room, did dishes, practiced "O Holy Night" (kind of funny to practice with three little girls all wanting a turn--I held Jill with one arm and practice with right hand and then would switch), dance lesson with girls, cleaned off kitchen counters, picked up kids from school, updated personal progress records online, made chili and cornbread (I used the award-winning recipe from the ward party) with the help of three girls while Allen worked on his math homework at the table, Abby read 7 books to sisters while I took a power nap on the couch, opened up the candy shop to let kids redeem their Tucker Tickets, they watched Word Girl while they enjoyed their taffy, Ross made a job-related phone call, ate dinner, bath night, indexing, mailed Thanksgiving songs, watched the week's episode of Studio C, and gave Ross a haircut. Turned out the light minutes before midnight.

IHOP Night

• Finally turned our heat on. 
• Been sending emails like mad regarding Young Women business.
• So happy the dishwasher is doing its job.
• Two school conferences last night. Reading levels went up--Allen's at 8th grade and Abby's at 5th. 
• Root beer floats make a perfect Family home Evening treat. Jane was in charge of our meeting last night. We did the first lesson, "My Body is From God", in the new FHE lessons on pornography that the church recently released.
• It's early-out at 12:30 all week. Makes it so I DON'T have to pack lunches and Jill takes her nap AFTER school.
• Went to Walmart last night for some fruit for pancakes. For our Young Women activity tonight we are having an IHOP party, standing for "Individual Hour of Progress". We'll be setting Individual goals (and map out a plan to get ready for award meeting in the spring) for the Hour and update Online records while we feast on Pancakes. It was my idea to do this with our 14 beehives. The president heard about it and now it's a combined Young Women activity.

Dental Prize Bags

• Jane and Emma went to the dentist this morning. Teeth are lookin' good. They loved their prize bags after and asked I take a picture of them with the small turkey on the table.

• Stopped at post office to mail book back. Read For Elise in one day on Saturday. Great mystery Love the author. Picked out the killer right off. 
• Going to parent-teacher conferences with Allen and Abby this afternoon. Girls are excited about the sitter.
• Made reservations last night for motels for our trip next weekend. We are going to venture into the redwoods, check out a lighthouse on the coast and see the butterfly preserve. It's gonna be fun!

Tools of Self-Reliance

I brought a tool workshop into the Beehive class today as we learned about the TOOLS (finances, education, work, spiritual strength, home storage, and health) Heavenly Father has given us to be self-reliant because when we learn to help and strengthen ourselves, we are in a better position to bless others. I love the airplane analogy of when putting on your oxygen mask first before helping others. We have lots of experience with flight attendants reminding us of that on flights :)

Ross taught the Elders Quorum lesson prayer. He said it was intense--lots of personal stories and heartfelt comments. Even some tears.

I went to a YW board meeting this afternoon and we planned out next year's combined activities. Later I got a text, asking me to sing in a Christmas quartet. Ross went home teaching and visited two families. We had soup and bread for dinner and finished all our fridge leftovers for lunch.

Here is a picture of the girls gathering leaves on our walk home from school on Friday and later arranged all their toys.

Peek-a-boo Jill. She peeked out the window while I was waiting outside to get a ride to the board meeting.

Soup and Volleyball at the Church

We had fun last night! The kids loved hanging out at the church playing while the adults ate soup and bread and dessert and visited. We heard great reviews for the differing redwood parks and played a game of Ticket to Ride. Ross wamped the group (he had longest train and completed the most routes and I had 2nd place), we brought the most kids to be watched, we were given all the extra bread to take home, our kids were never brought to us by the YW (everyone cooperated), and we were the last car in the parking lot--we locked the door behind us. When we got home kids were hungry for soup and bread, ate up, and then were in bed about 10pm.

Today Ross needs to get a lot of work done. The kids and I have cleaning to do and I need to go to two YW volleyball games at the church. Some of the kids are excited to go back to the church with me.

Double Zuppa

Today's plans: walk kids to school, see Miss Karen at story time, lunch, quiet time, walk to school again, make two pots of Zuppa Toscana soup(I cooked the bacon last night--the house smells wonderful this morning!) along with peasant bread, feed kids early, attend tonight's bread and soup adult potluck as a family. The kids get to hang out with the YW and other ward friends.

Here is Jill, my cutie patootie, at my legs while I was trying to make dinner last night.

Misty

Yesterday I walked over 14,000 steps or 6 miles doing both school pickups and our regular routine. Fun to see it logged. No wonder I sleep so well.

Today we walked in the misty rain (makes me hum the song Misty) to school in the morning and afternoon. We enjoyed all the colored leaves. On the way home we had pretzels for a snack (Jane found a "twin" pretzel stuck together), Emma found a preying mantis, and I loved the foggy landscape from the bridge. It's a soup and grilled cheese sandwich dinner tonight.

Ugly Playhouse

I am enjoying my new FitBit. I used my birthday money to buy it. It's a wristband I wear that tracks my steps, activity levels and sleep. It's really interesting to see it sync and the information graphed on the computer screen. Today's walk cashed in a third of my steps for the day and is encouraging me to do pick-up on foot as well.

I've been working on contacting all my visiting teaching sisters. I emailed two and wrote two letters to mail at the post office tonight while I'm out. I'll be at the church watching my young women in the volleyball tournament as well as practicing the piano for a future musical number.

I cleared out the backyard for the yard maintenance crew and brought in the painted cardboard piece from yesterday, attached the "house" to the tent and added a Waldo bed sheet. It's really ugly, but the girls had fun playing in it.

I got this email from Ms. Oxenham, Abby's teacher, a few minutes ago: "I wanted to let you know that Abby's informational writing piece was selected to be featured this month in our Stoneridge Writer's Society.  Abby does not need to bring a lunch on Friday because she will be having lunch with the other authors."  Yay Abby!

Today is my dad's birthday. He's a great guy! I always loved being rocked by him.

Veterans Day

We played tennis and kids rode on bikes before lunch. (Ross's shirt is one that includes the football schedule from 2002 and memories of when we started dating.) In the afternoon the girls painted at the table on giant cardboard. Allen helped me make oatmeal cookies and worked to earn tickets toward his debt. Since it's a federal holiday Ross didn't have to go into the office, but did a lot of work here at home. When kids were tucked in beds us parents went through dressers and pulled out shorts and organized drawers. We watched the new Studio C episode after Ross got back from jogging.

No School on Monday

This morning we watched Word Girl, made lemon poppy seed muffins, mopped the floor, met friends at the park, had lunch, picked up the sitter, took Abby to the doctor to check on her vitiligo (fastest doctor visit I've ever had--out of there in 20 minutes), picked up some groceries, took sitter home and twins giggled about all the fun they had, put away groceries, chopped kale, picked up backyard, played detective to figure out who broke the TV, washed dishes while talking to Ross on the phone and now I'm going to brown meat for Messy Moes (what we call Sloppy Joes) and sausage (for a future recipe) while Abby works near me writing up her Family Home Evening plan. She said her lesson is about honesty and she is choosing out the Hershey bars from our candy storage stash.

Mystery Mansion Double

I LOVE board games. We played a lot growing up and I had a few unique ones that we played more often than others. One was called Mystery Mansion which included tiny furniture you placed in rooms and an electronic box that you would enter information in to get clues, all in hopes of finding where the money was hidden in the house. Years back the electronic part of my game broke, but I kept the board and pieces because I knew my future kids would find it fascinating. For my birthday this year Ross found another copy of the game online. The awesome part of playing this time was the twins who are "too little" to play had their OWN copy of the game to play beside us. They were captivated for a long time which the rest of us were laughing and picking up furniture, trying to find the teeny tiny numbers to enter into the game's computer box, and racing to see who could find the money first. We'll have to play it again soon. It was fun!

Primary Speaking Parts

Yesterday was our primary program. The kids all gave their parts well at the microphone and it was nice that Uncle Paul came to see them too. Allen spoke clear and loud. Abby smiled confidently at us while she spoke. Jane loved her chance to shine at the mic and the teacher had to help her halfway through because the word "example" frequently mixes her up. The most memorable thing was little shy Emma getting up, seeing everyone staring at her and covering her eyes while she recited her part. It was so cute! I took a quick video of the kids saying their parts and then I gave them a treat after for cooperating.

Emma: "God speaks to us through prophets".
Allen: "Temples make it possible for families to be together forever."
Jane: "Prophets in the scriptures are examples for us to follow."
Abby: "I am grateful for the Atonement. The Atonement makes me feel the Holy Ghost."

Note: Emma is wearing "scripture specs" from sunbeam class and then found some baby sunglasses to wear on top of that. This girl just loves dress-up. And the background noise is her bouncing a beach ball. I tried to push it away while filming.

Double Doctor Visit

Jane and Emma went to the doctor on Friday for their wellness visit. Jane weighed 41 lbs and was 41 inches tall--the perfect square or at least that's what the nurse called it. Emma was 37 lbs and 42 inches tall. (I found those stats interesting especially because Emma was born the bigger twin and weighed more the first few years.) It was cute to see the girls sitting side-by-side for their hearing (wearing headphones and raising arm when hearing the beeps) and vision tests and then wearing the gowns for the check-up. All passed and each had four shots--four because they are four is what I told them. Doctor could sense their differing personalities in just minutes. Yep, they are pretty different! They walked out with prizes from the visit and then when we got home I saw our birthday candle numbers on the counter and noted that they were wearing their favorite color right then.

That evening the kids had their pirmary program practice and ice cream party. Not only did they serve ice cream but they had lots of ice cream activities -- relay, pin the cherry on the scoop, favorite flavor graphing, Don't Eat Pete and ice cream catching. Jane has one of the giant "cone" she is catching the "scoop" (balloon) in. While kids were at the event Ross, Jill and I headed over to Cafe Delicious and enjoyed a Mexican dinner plate and chips.

The next morning Emma greeted us with Jill's new glasses from the doctor. And then Jill took a turn wearing them. I laughed at Emma--someday I'll have to remember her wearing cute glasses and headbands to wake us up on Saturday morning.

And the next day the girls opened new birthday pajamas from Catherine Sawaya in Texas. Thanks, Catherine!

Moody Bath Girl

Jill has a hot-cold relationship with baths. As a baby she was fine with them and then around her birthday she slowly stopped liking them. Then she would scream whenever she had one. In the summer (probably because of the many water activities we were doing) she loved them. But for the last two months she has changed her mind again and is back to screaming whenever it's time to take a bath. We've tried different things--different bathrooms, toys, change in water temperature, taking a bath with buddies versus a solo bath... nothing seems to matter. She either loves it or hates it. Well, last night was bath night and so I held her for a few minutes while she fussed about it and then when the other girls were done, she got in. Surprise! She decided today is the day to change her mind again and giggle about the experience.