Trip's beginning

Long road trips with young children are always so much more interesting than long road trips with just boring old adults. These guys sure kept us on our toes throughout the 20 hour drive to Utah. What did people ever do without portable DVD players?

Elinor's favorite game lately is to pretend to sleep in the car. She thinks it's hilarious.

Ah, those peaceful moments when all three are sleeping.
I think this might have happened once. For about 15 minutes.

Outside a Maverik in Moab. Gotta love that Utah grass.
It sure is something we miss in Austin!

Since our bad experience stranded without a hotel room with roads closing all around us due to bad conditions, we have always booked a hotel room ahead of time for this trip. Those kids love hotels! It is getting tricky to figure out sleeping accommodations for everyone in a single room though.

This is how we started the night.

Those big kids listened to our instructions to go to sleep. That little one didn't.

She ended up on a cot by herself.

We made sure to spend plenty of time outside running around, stretching our legs and enjoying the beautiful weather once we arrived in Utah.

As much as Emily loves her princesses and tea parties, there's no hiding the rugged little outdoorswoman that she really is.

Silly kids. Em was trying to cheer El up. Still at Bridal Veil Falls here.

Beautiful weather, beautiful Utah.

Today

You know when you're a mom when this is what you dump out of your purse at the end of the day:

a wallet, some fruit snacks, a Superman cape, a chapstick, BandAids and Neosporin, and ballet shoes. I am ready for anything.

Elinor might be obsessed with potato head arms lately. It is not unusual for us to see her walking around holding as many arms as she can carry. She was pretty proud of this creation:

And one more thing... I am reading this book, "Bringing Up Bebe," and it is totally engrossing! It has really made me think about a lot of things I took for granted about parenting and what I wanted for my kids. Read it!

Aquarena Adventure

I blog this while baby boy hiccups happily in my belly.
Today the kids and I drove to the Aquarena Center in San Marcos for a glass-bottom boat tour. I got the idea from the Texas Nature Challenge, and thought it looked fun. We even drove straight there, more or less.
This was the first attraction of the park: a tree. I think the kids were just excited to be out of the car.

Caleb doesn't really like trees. He just wanted to be in the picture.
.
We purchased our tickets and headed out to the boat. Here is an excited Emily:

Boarding the boat:

Can you tell by this overdocumentation that I was proud of myself for doing this without Joseph? I have to admit, I was nervous.

And finally, inside the boat.

Em spent most of her time looking through the boat floor.

Caleb spent most of his time hanging out the windows. He liked that there was no glass.

El spent most of her time sitting and being curious.

 

 Right when the kids started asking when the boat ride would be over we got back to the dock. We spent some time in the museum answering our Nature Challenge questions.

I tell Emily to smile for pictures and she says she is. To me, she does not look excited here. She is the only child that would stand still long enough for a picture though, so she gets points for that.

When we got home we filled out Emily and Caleb's Adventure journals. Emily is such a sweet, earnest girl. I love the effort she puts in to projects like these. She was distraught when she realized her turtle picture was upside-down. The green, she explained, is not scribble-scrabble; it is all of the green plants that grew under the water.

 Caleb was super grumpy when we sat down to do his. He insisted he went on the boat ride by himself and that it was snowing. He also was sure he had seen a hippopotamus and heard octopus noises.

All in all, a satisfying day. 

Summer time

It is officially summer. We are falling into a new routine having Miss Emily at home with us and learning to cope with the rising temperatures. One of the first things that happened was putting the three kids in one bedroom so we would have the other open as a playroom. And so we wouldn't have to pay to keep it cool at night.
They love it - it's a party every night - but I do feel like they are pretty well packed in there like sardines.

My sneaky middle-of-the-night picture of them sleeping.

We have been spending a lot of time at various pools and splash pads.

This pose was all Emily's idea, I promise. I love Elinor peeking out around Caleb.

We are excited for our first summer trip to Utah.

Emily has Utah pegged as a very cold place and is preparing accordingly...

and dragging the siblings in with her.

Does summer seem like a casual time to anyone else? My kids have definitely been feeling that vibe.

The traditional Living Scriptures viewing on Sunday morning.
These guys built a nest. I love Emily's scarf and ankle adornments.

Caleb's usual after-church getup. I'm sad his t-shirt is covering the half-tucked-in-edness of his white shirt.

And here are a couple of randoms.

I loved this play dough Garden of Eden Joseph and the kids put together for FHE tonight. He's definitely the creative one in our marriage!

Elinor loves her babies. Here is the whole family (minus El) gathered for a picture.

So, yeah, we've been taking it easy, but every one has been having fun.
I am working trying to step up home instruction of letters and math for the kids which has been so fulfilling for me and I think enjoyable for them. I have been surprised by how much difference a little bit of one-on-one time makes for them every day. Piano lessons have been going well. I have been learning about how vastly different Emily and Caleb are, both in development and in learning styles. I feel lucky to be able to teach them myself at this point, since a hired teacher would not understand their personalities as well or be able to coach them throughout the week. Joseph is working extra hours on conference and journal submissions, which we hope will help him get a good postdoc position after he defends. I can't believe how quickly the kids are growing and things are changing! For now, all is calm, but I expect some big changes will come to our family in the near future.

last day of school!!

Today ended Miss Emily's first year of school. While she had a great time and really enjoyed learning new things and interacting with so many other kids, we are both ready for this break. The biggest challenge during the school year was getting those kids to bed by 7 every night so Emily could get up at 6:30 in time to catch the bus at 6:48.

Her teacher sent out a few pictures today. Her message said,
"Summer birthdays! I still can't believe school is out. I miss them already!"

After school we had the traditional end of school celebration.
Here is the story of how it happened.

Emily was the first one out, so I couldn't get a shot of her actually getting off the bus.

"Hey, what's this table for?"

Elinor: "Here are some cookies. See?"

"Oh, I get it. Now I can smile."

It was a pretty well-attended party. We do like student housing.

We took off early to say goodbye to our good friends who were leaving. They swooped their daughter off the bus and 15 minutes later drove away forever. We will definitely miss them.

And so it begins. We will see at least six other families leave this summer.


And then Elinor came really close and stared up at me into the sun, showing off her big lips.

Getting to know Elinor

Time for an update!
Let's talk about Elinor for a minute. This girl has character. She is opinionated, strong-willed, super loud, and even holds her own against Caleb. She definitely has the most expressive face of all of our kids.

Her smile here cracks me up.

Here's Joseph's pet ceramic bird that Elinor secretly loves, but mostly for the thrill she gets from being freaked out by it. It's funny how cautious she is when that bird is near. The first time she saw it she wouldn't go near it, even to grab a hard-earned pack of Smarties. She still won't touch it without an adult there to reassure her.

The other day we went to this super random 25 cent sale at a nearby toy store. Caleb loaded up on cheap little treasures; Elinor dragged this doll around the whole time. She wanted nothing more than this single toy for 25 cents. I really didn't want it in our home, but she really loves it. It has a flattened, melted head and a discolored body. And it's in a swimsuit. I am hoping her adoration wears off soon so I can sneakily throw it away.

So, this one time it was mother's day and Joseph ordered me a box grater from Kohl's. When I opened it they had sent the wrong thing. So he returned it and reordered it and they sent the wrong thing again. Now we hate Kohl's and I got a new present tonight for Memorial Day.

Joseph told me he chose the wrapping for how beautiful it is. It did make me smile.

We live in student housing and this year we are experiencing a major exodus of families, which makes me really excited for everyone else, but really sad for me. We had a little potluck the other day to say goodbye. Here is a picture of our kids and my tummy and everyone else's backs.

 Isn't my baby (elinor) getting huge? Good thing we have another baby on the way. Too bad this one might be born huge. Based on the way I am feeling and looking right now.

Fountain park

So, I'm trying to figure out why I've had such a hard time blogging lately. Is it because I'm pregnant? Because I've been blogging for four years now and I'm out of steam? Is it because kids are old news so I don't take delight in seeing them do fun things any more? Or is it just because we stopped doing fun things?

Well, guess what?! We did something fun today and I actually took a few pictures that I am excited to share! (hmm... maybe I just need to buy myself an expensive camera for some blogging motivation... yes, I am sure now that that's what I need.)

We boycotted this fountain park last year due to unreliable fountains, but decided to give it another try today. My friend Reianna told me she was taking her boys, so we decided to join them. The kids had a blast! I love that they are old enough to enjoy these things now. Two years ago Emily was a lot younger and more timid and Caleb was crawling. Now they are not afraid to show those fountains who's in charge!

Okay, so I guess I didn't get many good shots. A nice camera would be wasted on someone like me. The important thing is, though, that these guys were running around and laughing non-stop the whole time we were there.

And then there's this girl.
Here she is pre-most-daring-moment-of-the-day:

 And here she is post-most-daring-moment-of-the-day:

She's still not wet, but she did touch (or almost touch) that little jet of water behind her with one of her hands. Wahoo! Go Elinor!


The only downside to the whole thing was that we got home at the same time as Joseph so we had no dinner ready for him.  Aw, who am I kidding? That happens every other day anyway.
All in all, a satisfying experience. Bring on summer!

but not really because I'm happy with these cooler temps and rainy days.

For Smiles

Amanda was trolling Craigslist one evening and found someone had decided to pull the carpet and pad out of their rarely-used guest room. It's a pretty good fit. It's nice to be able to lie on the floor.

Our professional installation team is not satisfied unless you're not satisfied.

Once we got the carpet laid down, we had to have a dance party to test it out.

Emily loves rocks. She's also got phonetics down pretty well.

When Emily leaves for school in the morning, Elinor puts on her pajamas and gets ready to go as well.

What on earth will we do when our girls are old enough to date?

Mother's Day

Mother's day again!
Emily came home with this card for me

I love that the only accurate information on there is my name. And I love the stylish hoop earrings she adorned me with there at the bottom.

Church was good, though this 2-5 slot is hard on us. Joseph basically kept our home running this morning while I put together a YW lesson and then made dinner for the family this evening as well.

Joseph and the kids gave me this little mouse to add to my random collection of little things that I pick up at Savers or Goodwill.

It's nice to be the special person of the day. And it's nice to have sweet kids and a great husband.

ABD

Joseph has been working really hard at school. We are so excited that he was able to propose his dissertation a couple of weeks ago and now he is officially All But Dissertation!! We love Austin, but are also feeling ready to move on to the next phase in our life, so we are happy with this big step he has taken toward graduation. Congratulations, Joseph!