Strawberry Girl

Sophie and Isabella both love strawberries so much! I love this because I am not a huge fan and I want them to like stuff that I don't.  Nate likes everything, so I am grateful his genetics are mixed in there giving them a wider variety. 

Anyway, I have been buying them all sorts of new fruits and berries to make into smoothies and to snack on during the day.  Sophie decided she wanted to grow some strawberries.  So while we were at  IFA, I gave in and bought a container and a few plants for her to tend.  I am not so good at gardening in the ground and have had much better success with pots, I think they just seem more manageable.  We also bought some new gardening gloves for her and  set out to planting the strawberries. 

It was a nice warm day when we planted them.  But for the past few days it has been snowing and raining. I am so hoping they survive and she gets some strawberries, she checks on them multiple times a day.  She does have some far-fetched plans of taking the grown strawberries to the zoo and feeding them to the animals, but I think she will be happy just to eat something she had a hand in growing.

Swollen

Every time I speak to my mother or grandmother on the phone, they ask how I am feeling and how pregnant I am, a little or a lot.  Well, when you are pregnant with number four, there is no little bit pregnant.  But as there are no full length mirrors in my house, I ignore that fact most of the time.  I am not very tall, and I have a really short torso, so really, there is only a lot pregnant happening around here.  And I expect to spend the next several weeks just getting bigger.  So here is me swollen belly and all!

My ankles are also swollen and quite unseemly. I am only okay with that because I know that by the first of June they will start looking like my ankles again.  My ankles have bones, at least I think I remember seeing bones in them.

My Little Companion

Sophie gets to tag along all sorts of fun places with me.  Despite her generally crazy disposition at home, she behaves well in public (knock on wood).  She has come to all my doctors appointments thus far, is always at the store with me, and numerous fabric stores and places where she can't touch anything.  She does a good job. I am so grateful she and I have had the past few years to be together alone and really enjoy one another.  Her life is going to change in a few months in ways she isn't aware of, and although I am sure she won't remember all the time we spent running errands, playing, having little dates and treats, I will, and she can read all about it later.  Last Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment, then general auxiliary training downtown in Salt Lake.  Sophie loves wearing dresses, she asks to wear one every day!

  So I got her all dressed up and we headed out.  She is always full of questions at the doctors office, but refuses to ask him any of them.  Then we had a little picnic and headed to temple square.  Our meeting was in the tabernacle, and we sat up in the balcony and she colored and ate M&M's while I listened to the General Relief Society Presidency.  She was really good!  We left a little early because she had to go to the bathroom and I was getting quite swollen sitting on the tiny benches in the tabernacle-the pioneers must have been tiny!  It was a nice day together and I am so grateful that Sophie is my daughter.  She is often challenging and always busy, and you always know where you stand with her.  But she is always happy and straightforward and spicy!

Two times the cookie!

Last week for Family Home Evening I made cookies based on a recipe I have seen all over blogland.  Basically it is a chocolate chip cookie with a double stuff Oreo cookie inside it.

They come out huge.  Each one is a commitment to eat and the recipe yields only two dozen, thankfully.  But they are pretty yummy and last a long time.  I have my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe so was a bit reluctant to use another, but this one was really good!

 Verdict: Sophie and Jack thought these were pretty yummy.  Isabella, not so much, not a surprise, the kid is a major goody snob and I can never guess what she will and won't like.  Overall though a win, I haven't made too many treats lately, so I think everyone was pretty excited about that.  I think we are going to go for mango raspberry smoothies tonight.

The Early Bird Gets the Doughnut

This has been a pretty busy year for kids sports. Nate and I have both encouraged the kids to be athletic and make sports a part of their lives. We let them try whatever is available and see how they feel about it. Jack would play football, basketball, and baseball all the time if physically possible. The kid loves to be outside and be moving. I have no idea how he survives sitting at his desk most of the day without a ball in his hand.

Bella wanted to sign up for gymnastics the summer before kindergarten and has been going ever since. She also discovered a great love for basketball this year and wants to sign up for volley ball as soon as she is old enough. Gymnastics has been good for her in other sports and you can really see how the strength she has built there compliments everything else. And she loves it almost always, well, until this past winter. She goes early in the morning before school you see. She is our only kid who really values sleep. I rarely had to put her down for a nap when she was little, she would just go. In the fall when it was light outside, she was fine, she would hop up out of bed and get ready and all was well. Then winter hit, dark, cold, icy windows, snow, and man, it became hard. Then in December they let us know that her level needed to add another two hours each week. Nate and I both dreaded that change. You see, we value sleep as well (Nate more than I), and knew another few hours were gone. So we came up with a plan. A plan that gave everyone a little happiness. Nate instituted Doughnut Friday. One of us takes her in the morning, and we work out while she is there, then on the way home get some doughnuts to share. We both don't want to cancel all the work of the working out, so he and I each have a quarter of a maple bar, it is way hard to not buy a whole dozen each week, trust me on that one. Then Bella gets a chocolate with chocolate frosting. Jack and Sophie share with us because that is just how it is-sometimes we are mean. Anyway, it has totally helped with the extra early morning, funny as that seems. Bella always loves gymnastics, especially when she is there and not in transit. She has learned that some stuff is hard, but worth it. And it is always better to have Dad wake you up than Mom. He is way more sympathetic and gentle. I just wiggle her foot and say, time to go.

First Jobs and Minutes

Last Sunday we had a Relief Society Lesson on the value of work. One of the first questions asked was about what about your first job.  That triggered memories all week for me thinking about my first job and how much I really loved it and how much I learned.  When I was ten years old, my friend Erin and I decided we had done all the playing and had all the lazy summers we needed.  Also, we were getting to the age where lots of things we wanted cost money, and we needed to figure out a way to get some cash.  It hit me that Jack is ten years old right now, how young he seems to how grown up I felt at the time. 

One summer day, Erin and I decided we would go ask around local businesses to see if they were hiring or had any work for us.  Most probably thought it was pretty cute, two little girls out trying to earn money.  We lived in a pretty small place and only had our bikes as transport limiting our search even more.  We came upon the city hall, Island City city hall, operating hours 9-1 Monday-Friday.  Inside was just one employee, Judy.   At first I am sure she thought the same thing as many of the other places, how cute, these two little girls out looking for work.  But she gave us a chance.  She told us she would pay us to clean the city hall building.  I don't even remember how much an hour she offered at that point.  Well, the city hall building was pretty old.  There was an enclosed office at the front, a kitchen/meeting room in the middle.  Some bathrooms and storage, and a shop in the back.  Above the shop was an attic with who knows what in it.  Well, I know what-bats.  Erin and I were thrilled and enthusiastically reported for cleaning duty. That is how my first job began.  I was ten years old, soon to be eleven.  We cleaned and did all sorts of tasks around the office.  At first they were small, but as time passed, they grew bigger.  We worked through the summer, then said goodbye for the school year.  Judy said to come back the next summer.  So we did.  My job went from cleaning to being an assistant in the office.  I learned how to type, enter numbers for water and sewer bills.  Find plots in the cemetery, and answer phones and take information properly-a skill my ten year old is still working on. 

I worked every summer until I left for college.  When Erin and I got older, we would sometimes come in during the school year and do filing and type up all the burning permits.  We would still clean the building, the boys bathrooms are always gross.  There were different groups that met in the kitchen/conference room and it would always need cleaned after that.

I learned a lot and had a great time.  I worked with great people.  Judy would take us to her parents cabin on Wallowa Lake.  She also gave me a few driving lessons in her stick shift Ford Fiesta in the cemetery, where I couldn't hurt anyone.  She introduced Erin and I to catalog shopping and so many other things.  We worked in such close quarters for years!  Stan the handyman-who was much more than a handy man could fix anything and bantered with us and always treated us like princesses.  We had Christmas parties and birthday parties and so much fun.  There were all sorts of assistants for Stan ranging from his sons to kids our age as we got into high school.  We interacted with city council members, and typed up the minutes for their meetings.  The mayor would come in pretty regularly as well as guys from the fire department.  I entered water and sewer bills so many times I felt I actually knew most of the residents by name at the very least.  Not only did this job teach me all sorts of skills and how to work, I learned the importance of having a sense of community as well.

I think of how patient Judy was with Erin and I, she had to suffer through puberty, growing up, school and boy friend troubles with both of us.  I am sure some of those years seemed pretty dramatic.  When I look back I am so grateful that working there was my first job.  How many people can say they were at their first job for eight years!  I sometimes worry that my kids can't have this experience based on the times and where we live.  Back in the eighties things were just different.  And now, even though we live in a smallish town, it is a massive metropolis compared to Island City. 

In the Relief Society lesson, the discussion leader wrote a quote "Let us realize the privilege to work is a gift, that the power to work is a blessing, that the love of work is success. "-President David O. McKay.

I don't know when I realized what a privilege it was to have that job and how much it did for my self-esteem.  But it was huge, especially now when I look back.  I had a few other jobs after that, after I went to college.  I worked for BYU

So, tell me, what was your first job?  What did you learn? 

PS-I googled and googled for a picture of the old Island City Hall, they built the new one after I left.  No luck.  Mom-maybe you could snap one for me.

Transition

So, Nate got me a laptop for Valentines Day! A purple one because he knows what it important to me.  I don't have any of our pictures on it yet, I am still in transition between the two computers.  Jack and Bella think that the desktop computer is all theirs.  They are sadly mistaken.  The desktop has proven to be one of the most awful computers we have ever owned.  It had so many preloaded programs it ran sloooooow.  It would struggle to work if left on for too long, and it had a lack of usable programs.  I am so happy with the laptop.  Even though I haven't figured out how to work everything on it, I will.  Maybe next week I can work on getting pics and picasa on it.  Nate did make it so I can print wirelessly, I find this amazing!

We are also getting ready for new baby transition.  When I realized I am in the third trimester already I felt excited and a bit anxious, as my doctor says, this isn't your first ride, so you know what you are in for.  Sometimes that is a bit worse.  I am not in any hurry, but my ankles have began to swell in a very unbecoming way, and I will gladly move that along.

This transition is going to be the most dizzying for Sophie.  She has lots of ideas how her life is going to change when she becomes a big sister, all of them false.  Sadly, she will not automatically go to kindergarten, become enrolled in sports, be able to drive, or grow very tall directly after the baby is born.  She is so funny and really has been keeping us on our toes for quite a while now.  She is so friendly and easy going until she turns on you, then she is not. Three is an exciting age.