Turning cinco on a school day

Treats for the classmates -- check

Note to self: Don't have the kids start sorting M&M's ten minutes before their bedtime. As cute as these look, all that sorting and organizing them into rows takes a little time.

A picture book to donate to the classroom bookshelf -- check

This is one of Benito's all-time favorite books.

If you haven't read it, check it out (the accompanying audio CD is great, too) at your library.



Special hat/crown worn by the birthday boy all day at school -- check
*this one was the teacher's doing, not mine



New $5 watch that I saw him showing all his friends at school -- check

Benito has been addicted to telling the time ever since he learned how at school.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BENNETT THE BIG SCHOOL BOY!

I looked out the window. . .

and what did I see?

I have always been a little crazy in love with fall. Just ask the four-hundred and fifty students (over the course of three years) that I practically forced--I mean, what fifteen year old honors students wouldn't take advantage of easy extra credit?--up Provo canyon in October to write poetry and meditate about the changing colors and fall leaves. Or ask the roommates who patiently allowed me to tape, yes tape, fall leaves to our college apartment's living room wall. Or ask the too many different shades of orange sweaters that have graced the shelves of my closet (all purchased in October, mind you). Or ask Stephen who puts up with my annual cooking-with-pumpkin& squash experimentation, where I try my hand at custards, breads/muffins, cookies/bars/cakes and soups.

As near and dear as autumn has always been to me, I must confess the passion faded a bit when I moved to the Bay area. It's not that fall doesn't exist in these parts. It's just a little too fickle for my liking. September is traditionally pretty hot around here, and even October can be warm. I can think of several very overdressed visits to the pumpkin patch where the kids and I were sweating through the hayride. In fact, the first few years I lived here I didn't even see fall colors until mid-November. But this year it seems to be cropping up earlier than usual and I love it. I wish I'd had my camera with me on Saturday, because everywhere the kids and I went we saw trees bursting with yellow, red and orange leaves. SO gorgeous.

It's funny because regardless of the season, Eli and Bennett have always loved singing the Primary song "Autumn Time." They ask to sing that song almost every day at scriptures, and Stephen and I just roll our eyes and say, "Again?!" We're not sure where their obsession with this song came from, but as I'm writing this I'm wondering if maybe a love of fall is in their blood.

No more leaves taped to the wall. Now it's pumpkins on the table.

Discovering New Worlds

Columbus Day 2009

Taking all three kids to the city these days can feel like crossing an ocean, but with Stephen's parents along for the ride I felt a little more confident that we'd survive the trip. Golden Gate Park is always a favorite destination, and we've been meaning to take Grandma--nature and science buff--to this newly-remodeled museum since Mother's Day. Better late than never?

First stop

Rainforests
Costa Rican treetops with free-flying birds and butterflies
(along with Borneo bat caves & flooded Amazon forest)

The albino alligator of The Swamp

The Coral Reef in all its brilliantly-colored majesty

Chillin' on the concourse between the Academy and the De Young

Second Stop

Farmer John's Pumpkin Patch
in Half Moon Bay

He grows FORTY different kinds of pumpkins

His biggest pumpkin weighed in today at a whopping 1200 pounds!

What's a pumpkin patch without a tractor?

Millie seeking refuge from the wind in a tee pee

Eli vs Daddy

For those of you that know me, you know that I was a bit of a Dennis the Menace as a kid. By the time I was five I had chopped down my dad's newly planted peach tree, destroyed my mom's typewriter by putting tomatoes in it and wrapped my dad's car door around a tree.

But Eli, my friends, is giving me a run for my money. Keep in mind that he doesn't even turn three for another two months. Let's look at the numbers:

3 ER visits

4 broken panes of glass (2 from the coffee table, one from the front door and one from the laundry room)

1 broken ceiling fan (we still have no idea how he did it, we even asked him to re-create what he did)

I won't even count the things he has done to the computer and countless numbers of toys. So I am starting a tab. Maybe I should take it out of his inheritance :). Or better yet, maybe he should buy me a brand new house when he makes the big bucks in the NFL.

This bites

Our children are cursed.

Cursed with early teething.

Most kids teeth at a year of age. Our boys started at four or five months,
but poor Miss Millie has had an even earlier dose of the awfulness.

Here she is all normal and happy:

And then this:

My gums are killing me!

I feel so bad that our kids start the long and arduous process of cutting teeth at such a young age, especially when they're too small to even hold a teething ring in their mouth for relief.

So we tend to see a whole lot of this:

and pretty much anything that you get near her mouth is fair game. Fingers, toes (thankfully only her own so far), chins, noses, hair. If it's near her mouth, she'll suck on it.

Now, I know what you're thinking? What kind of alien babies do you have that grow chompers at three months of age?!? They don't actually cut the teeth for months to come--like I said, long and arduous--but you can see the white on her gum line. And believe me when I tell you I can definitely feel just how hard those pearly whites are going to be. Ugh.

So be grateful if you're one of those enviable parents whose children "didn't even feel their teeth come in" or "cut their teeth in a few weeks." Just don't expect me to smile and applaud when you tell me. I'll be too busy silently cursing your curse-less existence.

Conference Clarity

A few things I love about General Conference:

--It always comes right when I desperately need some serious self-evaluation and spiritual jump-starting.

--There are always a handful of talks that feel as if they were written just for me, talks that speak to the very dilemmas and thoughts I've been grappling with lately.

Elder Bednar's talk about being more diligent and consistent at home has been echoing through my mind since Saturday.

"Our testimonies are proclaimed and lived most powerfully in our own homes."
"Many, ordinary brushstrokes work together to produce a beautiful masterpiece" (his analogy for being consistent with daily family prayer, scripture and FHE)
"Publicly declaring testimony when obedience and diligence are missing at home is a false witness"

Elder Eyring's talk was another one that continues to reverberate.

"Pray for love to overlook weakness and shortcoming in your spouse. Pray for love to soften his load and sufferings. Pray to forgive and see the good."
"You owe your parents your life. Remember them with honor regardless of how imperfect they are or how you may presently feel about them."

"Remember the feeling of baptism and that feeling of approval that you get when you say sorry to your spouse or your children. The gift of the Spirit and its peace can be felt by you and your family."

--It forces us as a family to slooooow down for at least one weekend of typically-busy October. I mean, how often do the five of us sit together on one couch, gathered in front of the computer, watching and listening to the prophet and apostles of God?

--Grandpa's Sunday morning french toast and banana-chocolate chip pancakes, which the boys were talking about all week in eager anticipation.

--The clarity of mind and spirit I always take away with me. It's as if the pieces to the puzzle have been there all along; I just couldn't see quite how to put them together. The Brethren lay out the design for me. All I have to do it is execute.

Help me, Stella

I really need to get my groove back.

Maybe highly defined biceps and triceps have something to do with it. . .
in which case I may never get my groove back.

Seriously, though, I have been struggling to find a routine that fits me and my new "mom of a kindergartner" schedule for a full month now. I thought school was so cute and fun the first week or so, and then the hard, cold reality of daily drop-offs and pick-ups hit me like a brick. Feeding and clothing the clan by 8am is task enough, but then you tack on a nursing baby, a defiant toddler, a school kid who needs a snack, a water bottle and a homework folder, not to mention constant reminding to dress himself, brush his teeth, do his hair, get his backpack, eat his breakfast. . . and you've got one screaming, hot mess of a mom on your hands!

Needless to say I've given up on the whole "everybody showered and dressed" part of the morning, and only Bennett is really ready by the time we hit school. His teacher and classmates have seen Eli's pajamas and crazy bedhead more than they've seen his regular clothes, but if they take one look at me they'll know the wild hair and sloppy morning attire are clearly genetic. Millie seems to have finally adjusted to being rudely awakened and thrown into the stroller every morning, only to turn around and be awakened and thrown back in the same stroller a few hours later. Tomorrow is Benito's last half-day of kindergarten, however, so Monday's full-day schedule will bring its own set of new challenges in terms of the younger two getting naps before afternoon pick-up.

The hardest part for me has been finding time to do those essentials that were such an integral part of my old groove, things I used to do first thing in the morning or later in the evening, things that kept me happy and sane. Now I'm too rushed and frazzled in the a.m. and way too exhausted in the p.m. and therefore kinda grumpy in-between. I need to be better at dropping out the "non-essentials"--as Sister Beck talked about last Saturday in the R.S. broadcast--to make way for what matters most.

Anyway, if any of you more experienced or just plain smarter Stellas out there have any advice for "groove-less" me, don't hesitate to share. I need all the help I can get.