February: A New Family Phase

I was at a baby shower a few weeks ago and one of my friends was talking about her baby girl.  Her husband said he wants their baby to grow up to be an engineer, she said she hopes that her baby will just be normal.  Haha!  There were 3 female engineers in the room and we were all like "hey!"  Engineers are normal!  

I'm not forcing my girls to become engineers, but I sure like getting them excited about engineering.  We like GoldieBlox.  They are darling little toys geared toward teaching design and engineering principles   The zip line is a big hit and we've also been playing with the carousel.  So cute and fun!

Speaking of engineering... you know how FB will show you old posts?  Well this one popped up from ten years ago.  I was in an instrumentation class (ME 363) where we used cantilever beams and strain gauges to calculate the thrust of little rockets.  Our professor brought his camera to take pictures of all our designs when we ignited them.  Well he forgot his camera at the end of the day.  My friends and I were cleaning up our strain gauges and noticed his camera.  We took this silly picture then returned his camera to his office.  We thought we were being funny.  Well a short time later I was sitting in our class taking a final exam.  I turned to the last page and it was a large copy of this photo with the words "Have a great summer!"  hahaha!!!  Well played, Doctor Marc, well played.

The twirls have been playing so well together lately.  And they are funny too!  But the other side of that is they will often say things to offend each other and say "she hurt my feelings!"  One time Jaide said "she hurt my feelings and now I have eye tears!"  haha!

They have also been very brave lately letting me go though the car wash without having to climb through to the back to hold their hands.  It was raining and they told me "the rain is like a wash car" (yes, they call it a wash car).

They like playing doctor.  In the middle picture you can see Siena is getting a "huge splinter" out of Jaide's toe.  haha!  And Siena trying a new hobby of picking locks (like her dad).

I love that the girls are old enough to actually play board games together (without me!)  Scarlett woke me up one morning like this!  haha!  Lotion as an adhesive, creative!  Then we had Pillsbury crescent rolls for dinner.  Scarlett was like "These aren't pigs in a blanket... These are just blankets!!!"

The twirls have been taking naps again.  It's been so wonderful!  It's only when they need it.  Sometimes Jaide will even disappear up in her room and put herself down for a nap!  My mom said I did the same thing!  I've always appreciated a good nap.

We spend a lot of time in the car driving Scarlett to and from school.  We see the "Jade Bus" (for a daycare) in the parking lot and often a Toyota Sienna minivan in the pickup line with us!  haha!  The twirls don't seem to mind riding in the car if they are watching a movie (thank goodness for DVDs!)  Lately they have been obsessed with the movie Rio.  We watch it through several times a week.  I've only seen it one or two times, but man I can quote that thing hard core!  I love that the twirls are so into that movie.  They quote it, act it out, and sing all the songs.  So cute!  "Not cool man, not cool!"  They like to watch the credits (the "elevator") all the way to the end and sing the songs:

The twirls were doing funny little dances with their shadows:

We took the girls to the dentist.  We had to wait for over an hour to get back and they never apologized or acknowledged that our 4 girls were hungry and tired and bored.  We won't be taking them back to that office.  Ugh.  It was so frustrating!!  I was all flustered but when we actually got back there the girls were awesome!  I didn't take pictures of all of them.  I was confident that I only got a photo of one of the twirls.  It wasn't til a different day when I went back through my photos that I noticed the pony was different.  Only then I realized I had both of their photos!  haha!  Identical twins!

I went to my annual physical the other day.  Dr. King looked at my bare skin and then said "I am glad that you're taking Vitamin D!"  hahaha!  Porcelain skin problems!

Among my many random hobbies, I've taken up cutting hair for my friends.  One of my YW, McKayla, (and also my math student) let me chop off several inches and give her some feathering around her face.  Then my friend Rachel was telling me how they've never taken their daughter to get a haircut before.  She is worried that Kate would freak out at a salon.  Since Kate spends a lot of time with us, I offered to cut her hair.  She was a champ!  She sat so still and let me cut off all the scraggly ends.  Rachel had me cut off several inches so that it wouldn't get in her bum crack.  haha!  We have the same problem with our girls.

We have been taking our girls out on family outings that have actually been fun!  We are finally entering a new phase where things aren't just survival mode.  We went to Scarlett's school for family movie night.  They have a big screen where they showed "Trolls".  It was our first time seeing the movie and the girls were great.  It was free, they had an intermission, noisy babies were fine, we could bring our own snacks/blankets/chairs.  We're looking forward to the next family movie night.

We took the girls to dinner.  It was the first time we had a tear-free nice dinner!  Again, a new phase for our family.  I love how Skye kept chewing on the table (don't worry I cleaned it).

The twirls are old enough that they are getting invited to birthday parties.  This party was a Rapunzel themed extravaganza.  She went all out!  I loved the donut tower and all the little details.  So fun!!!

The Furnesses came over to hang out.  Farrah wanted to hold the baby.  I love that she is the same size as Skye.  This picture is so adorable of both of them!  I went upstairs to put Skye down for a nap, when I came down Ashley was enginerding a little dog house!  I was so proud of her!!!

My friend Whitney is prego and for the first trimester she was soooo sick (like getting IVs regularly, can't leave her bed).  Since Jake is their Home Teacher we tried to figure out how we could help.  We decided to send out a sign up for people to watch their kids.  Every single day one of our friends would watch their kids while their dad was at work.  Every day.  It was so wonderful to see our framily coming together.  I signed up to watch their kids but Skye was sick the day before and the girls all woke up many times.  I was slammed, but I knew that I was better off than Whitney.  I had a pounding headache, but was pushing through.  Then Julianna (my visiting teaching companion) called and asked if she could come by for an hour.  She showed up with stuff to make little pizzas for all the kids and a bean bag toss game.  She entertained them while Skye and I slept.  What an angel.

More babysitting and being babysat.  Lots of cuties!

Jake painted some little hooks and put them in some frames for me.  Now my necklaces can join my earrings on my wall of fancy fun.  Since they've been hanging Scarlett's been eyeing them and asks to wear them to school.  Jewelry is meant to be worn!  

I took this little FB quiz about common science myths.  At the end of the quiz it said this....  haha!  Why, yes I have thought about that!

Around 8am every morning for the past few weeks I've heard this metallic banging sound. Finally I figured out that it was loudest in Skye's room. I looked out her window and there was a woodpecker banging on our rain gutter! My neighbor is really into birds so I asked him what we should do. Apparently the males try to make loud noises to impress the females during mating season. He's not doing damage to our house, just trying to flirt and it should only last a few weeks. As long as Skye doesn't get woken up I'm ok with the annoying little guy.