YAHOO! I found it!

Did we have fun at Camp Ritchie?

In the words of Mary Murphy, "YES WE DID!!!"

(Speaking of Mary, I miss SYTYCD. DWTS just doesn't thrill me anymore. But I would like to see them put the DWTS judges on SYTYCD, and then it would be a perfect combo!)

*A little note of explanation: this picture was taken circa 1990 at Girls Camp (Camp Ritchie). These are all girls from my ward: Erika, with the beautiful, full, spazzy hair; Aamey; Stacey; and Alicia. When I moved away from California, Erika made a scrapbook for me with lots of fun memories, including this picture, with the caption: "Try Swiss Formula, it's the best. I wouldn't trust anything else for my hair!"

See, I told you she keeps me laughing. :)

If you want to see more pictures of those happy days of my youth, check out Erika's blog here.

Focus

Guess who is in every picture snapped by our camera? Baby Olivia, that's who. You know how, stereotypically, the first child gets photographed a ton, and subsequent children are supposed to have fewer and fewer photos of their childhood? Well, the thing that blew that theory in our case is the new digital technology. See, many of our pictures are taken by my kids (especially Lauren and Hannah), and not me. Back when we had a camera with actual film, I would not have been so free with it. I probably take just as many pictures of Olivia as I did of Katelyn as a baby--maybe slightly fewer. But when I was buying film and paying to develop it, and half the shots came back from the printer and went into the garbage because they were worthless, I had to be little more choosy.



Anyway, here is a sampling of Hannah's photography:



Daddy and Olivia. See the resemblance? I do. Mommy and Olivia. See that nice brown spot on my cheekbone? Yeah, I didn't have that before Olivia came into my life. As you can see, I love her a bunch anyway. My face has a nice-sized blemish like that for almost every one of my pregnancies. I hope it's not cancer.


And here's the picture I took this morning. These two were so irresistable in their pink and brown, I had to take a quick snapshot. (I hear that the new trendy combo is brown and green, which is also a good choice.)
On my Christmas wish list: a nice digital camera that I won't want to share with my little ones. And would someone please develop a way to print the picture date on the back of the print instead of the bottom corner? That would be fantastic.

Tradition

If ever I get sick, I'll give you three guesses as to what else is going on in my life, and I guaruntee that at least one of them applies:

1. It's back to school time.

2. It's the holidays (as in, Christmas time).

3. I've recently been in a doctor's office waiting room.

In this case, two of the three are true.

It's exactly how I felt one year ago. Exactly...except that I'm not pregnant this year. :)

Time Keeps on Slipping

Stuff is happening, but there's no time to blog about it. Why? Because I'm in a race against the clock. I was looking forward to school starting up again, because it felt like it had been a very long time since I'd had a normal routine...you know, with the baby being born, and school letting out for the summer, and vacations, and what not.

Is this what "normal routine" means? Yikes.

On the first day of school (which also happened to be Emily's birthday), I woke up at 6:30, and when I looked at the clock at 9:30, three hours later, I thought to myself, I've been up and going for three hours, and all I've done is fix breakfast and get kids off to school. Honestly, that was all. I was still in my pajamas!

Here's a brief overview of the busy schedule:

KATELYN:

Gets up and ready for school on her own. (Thank goodness!) Leaves home an hour earlier than her sisters, and gets home an hour earlier in the afternoon. Or at least, she used to get home earlier, until she started Cross Country training this week. She's enjoying it (and it's wearing her out), and we're so proud of her. She is also learning the flute this year. Still finding time to read books, and lots of them!


EMILY:

Turned 10. Decorated her own cake (with just a little help from Mom). Has the same teacher she had last year, so it didn't take her long to adjust. Also started soccer again. I wish I had a camera at last Saturday's game, when Emily played like a mad woman, heading the ball to intercept the opposing keeper's drop-kick! (Another mom asked me, "What are you feeding her?!) It was awesome.

LAUREN:

Has some adjusting to do, now that she's in school all day, every day. She has been to the nurse at least twice already, but, as Lauren says, "She didn't know what was wrong with me." I think Lauren would love to just play all day. The nurse must be nice.


I wish the nurse could have helped with this little bloody issue: trying to lose that top tooth. It was a stubborn one! For days, I thought it was about to drop out, but it hung in there, despite our best efforts (with floss, fingers, etc). When it finally did come out, it was chewing gum that did the trick.

This was almost 24 hours before it fell out.

HANNAH:


Started "preschool" with four little friends from church. I'll be teaching every fifth week. She loves it. So do I. She wishes it was every day. This is my first week to teach, so I've been preparing. On Monday when she asked if she was going to preschool, I explained that she didn't have school that day, but that I would be teaching her school this week, so I needed her to help me get ready that day. After getting dressed, and asking again if it was time to go to school, she got frustrated when I said she wasn't going to school. She rolled her eyes, put her hands on her hips, and said, "Mom, do you know what? When we get ready for school, that means we need to go to school." It finally dawned on me that she thought "get ready for school" meant get dressed, brush teeth, eat breakfast. I guess I didn't do a good job explaining that "get ready" on Monday meant looking up ideas online, and buying a couple things at the store!


OLIVIA

She's learning to take regular naps (I think it's working, but I don't want to jinx myself by saying so!) and to laugh.


She has laughed before (Labor Day weekend we heard her first giggles), but she's not yet a big giggler. We've really got to work the laughter out of her. She prefers to just be a quiet observer. But she does squeal at her toys, and blow bubbles and "growl", and so many other cute and adorable things. We love this girl!

Breakfast Conversation

Mom: Doesn't Olivia look adorable?

Dad: Yep, I could gobble her up.

Emily: Well, she would definitely fill you up!

4 Months

I have so much to catch up on, and so little time! For today, let's just play another game of "Baby to Baby"...

In fifth place, weighing a puny 13 pounds 8 ounces, we have 4-month-old Lauren.

Barely squeaking ahead into fourth place is Emily, at 13 pounds 10 ounces.

This girl is used to being first, but in this case, she wins third place, weighing 14 pounds 2 ounces at 4 months old, it's Katelyn!

Dropping to a respectable second place is our former champ, Hannah Beans! At four months old, she weighed 15 pounds 12 ounces. Not too shabby!

But today, we crowned a new heavyweight champion! She may be the youngest, but she's got something to prove. Don't mess with this little cutie! She now weighs 16 pounds 8 ounces, and she's STILL GROWING, folks!

Baby, take a bow! Mama's so proud of you all!!!

My Grandpa passed away last Wednesday. You might remember him from this post I wrote last year. I'm so glad I was able to visit him last month and treasure what I knew were probably my last shared experiences with him. He wasn't saying a whole lot during our visit, but my last favorite memory will be sitting next to him during Sacrament Meeting, sharing a hymn book with him, and his compliment to me: "Great voice!" Coming from him, I take that as a true compliment.

You can read his obituary here. He was an amazing man.It's sad that he won't be greeting us when we visit Utah in the future. But I had a sweet experience last weekend that I'm trying to keep in mind.

It was a beautiful, blue-sky Saturday morning, and I was outside playing with my children. Out of nowhere came a small (but noisy) plane flying above us, doing barrel rolls and loop-de-loops and all kinds of tricks, making us all stop and stare. It made me think of my Grandpa, and stories I've heard of his daring stunts as a pilot in his twenties. Knowing him as I did when I was a kid, I had no trouble picturing or believing those stories about him! While I knew that Grandpa's body was failing now, and was about to die, I also saw so clearly the joy and freedom that he was about to experience, in spirit. It made me smile, and almost chuckle, I felt so happy for him, so lucky to be his posterity, and so glad for who he is and will continue to be.

I'm so glad to know that life doesn't end with death, and I'll look forward to our next visit! :)