Well then...

Let's recap here. In the last month we have:

Gone on a two-week vacation.

Glory, hallelujah, praise the Lord and however else you can say it, Ben finished his thesis.

Defended thesis. Passed with revisions, a very common occurrance.

Saw lots of friends before we left UT.

Packed like a couple of crazy people.

Had help to pack all our stuff into the 17' truck. Miraculously (those there can testify), it fit.

Seriously, when we got everything in, I was torn between,"Yay! It all fits!" and, "Holy crap, let's take it down to D.I. and dump half of this." The table and chairs did us in. So freaking heavy.

Cleaned apartment. Really, the worst part of moving in my opinion. I'm glad I had some help.

Drove through a hail storm in central UT that I thought was going to break my windshield in.

Came over the summit and saw Las Vegas at night. The urban sprawl is impressive, but I won't say beautiful. Evelyn called it the "city of sparkling Christmas lights."

The traffic was worse here than in California actually.

Had our first In 'n' Out burgers. So delicious. Five Guys's fries are better though.

Survived California traffic and did not get lost.

Now unpacking and attempting to get quite a few things fixed in this place. We think we're victims of California's budget crunch. Our fridge had to be replaced, the oven doesn't work (new oven please!), one of the bathroom sink faucets leak into the cabinentry, the kitchen light turns on and off by itself, etc. They're short on maintenance men we've heard, and it's sort of obvious with the state of this apartment.

We're not moving ever again.

Paint?

I was at the pool yesterday with my kids and there were some other kids there, from the Taylor side of the family. A little granddaughter, probably about 4 years old, saw her Grandma get into the pool and asked, "Grandma, did you paint on your legs?"

"No, I didn't. Why are you asking that?"

Grandpa and the adult children just start cracking up. The little girl was referring to the spider and varicose veins on Grandma's legs.

Oh, the things I gets to look forward to when I am older!

And Jilly is referring to me as Priscilla. No idea where that came from.

Ahhhh,

Vacations are good.

Getting some mud time in.

Visited friends with a cute girlfriend for Gordo.

Rolling in the grass with a fun second cousin in Idaho.

Sitting in museum sculptures is important business.

Fun little streams cut away in a hillside in Idaho Falls.

Saw and loved their great-grandparents.

Oh, beautiful Idaho landscape. I will miss you.

Experimenting with oatmeal cereal. He loves it so far.

This is the miracle diaper rash remedy for da boy.

And...the pool. Few words needed.

Running

How Evelyn feels about moving

(actually, she said she was mad that her baby wouldn't go to sleep)

I feel like I'm a marathon runner, racing my way to our big move next month. I don't like running in general; physically or life-wise. Things have just been nuts the last week or two, and we're adding pre-vacation stress to the mix as well as we try to leave this weekend for family visits. I hope we can relax some on this trip, and then really relax once we get to Cali. I thought that getting started on packing a month ago would help me feel less stressed at this point, but it's not happening. Oh well. I guess moving just bites no matter how you slice it. And it bites harder with more kids.

Look at this face. Doesn't she look incapable of naughtiness? Wrong. She has decided that destruction of property is how she'll handle the impending changes in her routine. For example: water puddles on the carpets and then crumbling bread into them and making a soupy dough mess which she then rubs into the carpet, coloring on the carpet with blue crayon, rubbing blue toothpaste on one end of my freshly cleaned couch, coloring with black crayon on my white sheets, and breaking cookie cutters. She's also been throwing multiple tantrums in the store (she really has not done that up to this point) and issuing blood-curdling screams. Maybe the terrible twos and threes are finally setting in. And they are terrible. I think I say the word "timeout" at least 60 times a day to her lately.

We have had some fun, visiting friends for playdates and going to a few parks. I bottled some jam last week, and that turned out really yummy, and I think I'm going to can peaches and apple pie filling while at my parents.

Poor Ben, he just keeps plugging away at his thesis, which he now speaks of with notes of disdain. He just wants it to be done and over with. I want it to be done and over with!

A few months ago, when life was rolling along fairly smoothly (and it was), I was wondering when the next crazy period of life would start. Well, here it is. Now I get to see how patient I can be with my kids and the invariable hitches that crop up as we turn a new page in life.

Another first

It finally happened. Evelyn asked for a pet yesterday.

"Mommy, I want a pet. We need to go to the pet store to get it."
As far as I knew, she didn't know what a pet was, much less that there are whole stores dedicated to them. "What kind of pet do you want?"
"A kitty."
Now I'm trying to put off the inevitable truth. "What color do you want it to be?"
"A pink kitty."
"Well my dear, your Daddy is allergic to cats. When he gets around them, he sneezes a lot and can't breathe very well. So he has to stay away from kitties."
"Oh." (A little disappointed.) "How 'bout a dog?"
"Um, where we're moving I don't think we can have a dog. A little apartment isn't much fun for a dog anyway. Don't you think it would like a place where it can run around a lot?"
"Oh, yeah."
"So maybe, when we have a house and yard, we'll get a dog. Alright?"
"Okay."
She took this all much better than I thought she would, not being terribly disappointed. I think this must have been the result of something she saw on Sesame Street.

I'm not a fan of cats myself, and I read a very interesting news article about their ability to manipulate, see here. Ben grew up with them so he favors them over dogs. But we found out a few years ago he's allergic to them, so we will definitely not be having cats in our home. I still think, maybe, if the kids can convince their Dad, we'll have a dog (a small/medium size one) outside.

Do you/will you have pets at some point?

Jilly's Binky for a Bike Chart

Jillian has done quite well adjusting to not having a binky. She's already been able to cross off seven days on her chart, though there was one day when she wanted her binky and told us that she didn't want a bike. Since that day, though, things have gone well and she should be able to get her bike soon! Hooray Jill! You're growing up.

Re-cap

Make sure you check out Ben's Twilight jab below. I thought it was funny, he is my husband after all. And I am eating sweet cherry/pecan brownies as I type this. I need to fuel this post.

So. After not saying anything very substantial for about 7 weeks, I will fill you in on what I've been up to. After I wrote that post in mid-June, I thought, "Hmmm. What am I going to do the rest of the summer? I can't pack yet, we're not vacationing until mid-August..." and I tried to plan it all out. About 3 days later, Ben's grandpa passed away (we had been expecting it for a while), so we were busy with family and all the things that surround a funeral. As soon as that was done, enter some family drama, and off I headed with the kids to ID and WA for 2 1/2 weeks. That's where all my summer went. And now I feel like it's passing much more quickly than it ought to.
Ben's Dad is learning the bagpipes, which I think is pretty cool. He practices nearly every day at sundown. While at my parents, I found the recorder I used in the 4th grade, and the girls thought it made a great noisemaker. So when Evelyn saw grandpa practicing, she went out to play beside him. You could hear her high-pictched screech over the pipes most of the time.
It has been HOT here the last 10 days or so. Too hot to be outside except in the mornings, so here was one afternoon while the girls watched Sesame Street, their new favorite show. Jilly was snuggling with Gordon, so he was content to be on the floor. And that binky you see? It's on the outs! Jilly got pretty jealous a few days after Ev got her bike, so while I was gone one morning Ben bargained a bike for a binky. He made up a chart that shows her when she goes two weeks without the binky, she'll get her own bike. (I have a smart husband :). It's kept her pretty motivated. We also cut big holes in the nipple of it, so she doesn't like to suck on them much anymore. Thanks for the suggestion Dad!
We bought some fireworks for Pioneer Day, and invited the neighbor kids to check them out. This is Ben saying, "Well, this wasn't worth the $1.50 I paid for it."

I bought some grapes and these two split the bag and pretended they were babies. They were rocking them, singing "baby mine" or something like that. A few days ago it was zuchinni that was babied. Ev has been feeling very maternal, dressing up her Winnie-the-Pooh bear in Gordon's baby clothes, which actually fit the bear. She'll say that he spit up, and she has to change his clothes. I just think she wants to try out every outfit that Gordon wears on Pooh.
Here is the real baby. He's almost four months, and big. The girls begged me to put him in the doll stroller the other day, and he's the same size in that stroller as Jilly was at 10 months. So I tried to measure him, and he's roughly 15 pounds, and 26" long. That puts him around the 80th percentile for weight, and above the 97th for length. He really is one long kid. He had his first illness last week, Roseola. It made him really cranky, which is quite the turn for this kid who hardly cries except to eat, be changed, and sleep. Gordon wants to be everywhere his sisters or I am, he knows when he's been left alone and lets me hear about it. He's going to be a real busy boy when he becomes more mobile. He really loves his Daddy too. And the Red Sox of course.