pictures

Here are a few pictures from the last month. Actually there are quite a few.
Here is a great way to calm down before bedtime. Make a jail out of masking tape, and then have the kids run through it.
Practice for Halloween by making mummies.


For the Star Wars aficionado, this is Jilly pretending to be the Sarlacc Pit eating Boba Fett from "Return of the Jedi."
We're catching Evelyn with books more often, she goes to bed with about 10 each night to peruse as she falls asleep.
Grandma Cluff makes a great pumpkin pie, and this is how the children eat it. A tiny slice, with tons of whipped cream. They get through about half the pie pieces and then lick the rest of the whipped cream away and ask for more.
This is from when Mom and Dad were away. The plush, fuzzy Winnie the Pooh and Tigger dolls were Jilly's early birthday presents, but she packs the little honey bear around while Evelyn has claimed the birthday gifts as her own. As long as they're not fighting about it I guess. Not sure what the tongues sticking out are about. In the other picture, Jilly was trying to move her finger up her nose. So this picture definitely won out.
Last Sunday when Ben and I came home. Ev and I were still not feeling completely well, and the girls were staging chaos and rebellion on our return home, so they won and walked around/fell asleep in their Halloween costumes.
My darling almost 2 year old daughter. Apparently she was pretty much a pill the entire time Ben and I were gone. The only love Grandma got was "NO!!!!!", hiding behind her hands, and spitting for long stretches of time (something she does to me when she feels she's not getting her way). She had love for Grandpa though, wanting him to be the one to help her get stuff done. He obviously didn't mind.
Jill's about 75% potty-trained, and finally sleeping through most nights. I could have sleep-trained her months ago, but she was still "the baby" and I felt it would be too mean. But I didn't feel the same way with Evelyn, even though she was a much better sleeper overall than Jill. In any case, I'm making sure they're both good sleepers and fully potty-trained by the time #3 makes its arrival in early spring. Hopefully we can see that elusive boy on an ultrasound in a few weeks.

5 years

Ben and I celebrated our 5th anniversary this weekend, and it was mostly good. I think I have some bad karma floating around. Or maybe it's just Murphey's Law. More about that later. My lovely and patient in-laws drove from Idaho to come watch the girls while we left for two nights and some time to ourselves. Thursday night, while we were watching the BYU football game with some neighbors (I had a baby monitor on in my apartment) I heard Jilly cry, got back quickly, and found she had the stomach flu. Thankfully, she was better by the morning so we didn't have to eat one night's hotel fees. We had dinner with the grandparents, and then took off while Grandma and Grandpa headed to the pumpkin patch with the girls.
Evelyn has been talking about the pumpkin patch for a good month now. They were both excited. Jilly picked this little pumpkin and Evelyn picked the giant one. They decorated them with foamy Halloween stickers, which I thought was smart on my mom-in-law's part. No sticky, stringy, carving pumpkin mess and toddlers.
Jumping in the princess castle.
I think this was some magic pumpkin carriage ride. Maybe like Cinderella.
Thought this picture was pretty cool. Jilly is such a cheeseball. On Saturday, Ben and I did some shopping in Park City (got some Christmas shopping done!), ate at a good Mexican restaurant, and then planned on doing a session in the Salt Lake Temple. The grandparents and kids were supposed to go to Wheeler farms for the afternoon. Well, the stomach bug made another ugly appearance with Evelyn. So only grandma and Jilly ended up going to the local mall to pick out a birthday present for Jilly while Evelyn stayed home sick with grandpa. I was less than thrilled with this news, but we went ahead with our plans anyway.
Do you want to know how to ruin a great temple experience? Have your stomach decide it doesn't like the dinner you fed it in the middle of a session. Now I know what a caged animal feels like. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I cannot believe I threw up in the middle of one of the most beautiful temples in existence. Stuff like that just doesn't happen to me usually. So this will be labeled as one of my most embarrassing moments in life. We should have stayed at the hotel and watched the Red Sox play Tampa Bay.
At least the stomach bug was short-lived, we made it to the Tabernacle Sunday morning for "Music and the Spoken Word" live. This was by far the highlight of our short trip. It was so cool, beyond my capacity to express. Anyone who can come to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square live should.
All in all, it was a fun trip, and great to come back and see the girls on the mend. I feel bad for Grandma, who has had three of her last four trips here marred by the stomach flu. What is up with that? I would really love to know. I'm sure most of you who read this have marred vacation stories to tell. And I'm probably not the only one to ever be sick in the temple. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for making our little trip possible!

Bowling with Babies

We got out of the house yesterday and took the girls bowling at BYU. We could have gone to the Homecoming parade, but it was too cold for us. After taking the scenic route to campus (a drive that normally takes 8 minutes took 20 due to parade detours), we arrived at one of the cleanest bowling alleys I've ever visited. No smoking, no beer, no swearing. It was a nice change from bowling alleys I visited growing up. Evelyn was really excited to find her own ball, and Jilly was excited to attach herself to one I guess because this is the posture she assumed for most of the game. It was like she had a 10 pound tumor. When she moved or was picked up, the ball came too. And there was no way she was going to roll it down the lane to be eaten by the pin monster.

We had Evelyn rolling Granny-style, and then 2 frames before we finished the family next to us got one of those ball-rollers where you have your kid put the ball on top and it rolls off. We wished we had been that intelligent. Our one game took about an hour to finish I think.



It was a fun activity, we'll probably do it again. Next time I hope Jilly won't be bringing me my shoes in the 6th frame, telling me it's time to go home with her new, 10 pound best friend.

The Dancing Darth Vader

In her yellow 'Belle' dress. I tried to get Jilly in her Cinderella dress to participate, but she wanted to sit this one out. This is the new waltzing song of choice.