1950s Daddy/Daughter Night

Last time the girls had a Daddy/Daughter Dance at the school I kind of bombed it and sent my girls to the dance wearing casual clothes when I should have had them gussied up. In my defence, I was newly pregnant and exhausted and had the worst morning sickness of all five pregnancies. So the fact that I got them out the door at all is to be commended. Still, I felt bad that they were so...plain...while all their friends were so fancy.

Thank goodness I got a do-over last night! 

This year their (new) school chose a 50s theme for the Daddy/Daughter Date Night (which involved more than just dancing—there were hoola hoops and other fun "stations"), so while we were waiting for Daddy to get home from work, the girls and I put costumes together. And we crushed it.

Miriam's costume was pretty easy because I'd made a poodle skirt for her school musical last year. Rachel's was a little more difficult because I didn't have (wasn't about to make) another poodle skirt. After looking through some "google images" results for "1950s fashion" we rolled her jeans, threw on a plaid shirt (of mine), and put her hair up in a handkerchief. 

After looking up hairstyles, the girls let me experiment with some pin curls. 

Pumpkins

A week and a half past Halloween is a great time to write about carving pumpkins, right? Because they're still nice and fresh and sitting on our front porch and everything. 

Andrew went grocery shopping with the kids a few weeks ago (several weeks ago, if we're being honest, because it was before Alexander was born) and came home with an entire family of pumpkins: a daddy pumpkin, a mommy pumpkin, four little pumpkins, and a wee baby pumpkin.

Then a couple of days before Halloween, Jaker's Jack-O-Lanterns (by Harward Farms) came to the school and gave every single child in the school a pumpkin—and not just a piddly pumpkin, either; these were hard-to-carry-home size (but the kids did it)—so by Halloween we were basically drowning in pumpkins. 

Before we get to pumpkin carving, I'll show off Miriam's character pumpkin for school (which, if you're keeping track, means that she (1) carried her pumpkin home from school, (2) carried her decorated pumpkin back to school, (3) carried her decorated pumpkin back home so she could carve it—talk about a work out):

Zoë talks

Recently Zoë has become rather interested in saying prayers, which interestingly enough coincided with a rapid increase in vocabulary and complex sentence structure. Her language skills made a huge jump around the time Alexander was born (coincidence or necessity?). So now instead of ending her prayers with "Jss. MORE!" she ends them with "name Jesus Chist. The end."

I'm pretty sure she doesn't think "amen" is a legitimate word.

On Sunday she was being a bit of a pill during sacrament meeting and kept telling me, "Gook me—nope!" (translation: "Look at me—nope!") because if I didn't look at her I couldn't catch her being naughty, right?

She also kept telling Andrew, "Call me—nope!" meaning that he shouldn't say, "Zoë," in a disproving tone, obviously.

Today Benjamin and Zoë were playing LEGO in Benjamin's bedroom when I went in to tell them that I was going to take a nap with the baby. Often (probably even usually) the kids jump to use this as an opportunity to ask for screen time and often (probably even usually) I will consent to turn on a show for them because...sleep.

Zoë surprised me, however, by quickly saying, "Me 'atch show—nope!"

First snowfall

We had the first flurry of the season today and we all survived it (though we may have been comically overdressed compared to the...locals).

Here, for example, is Alexander on the first snowy day of his life:

Must be...Zoë

There's a song we like to sing to Alexander, which I sang to Benjamin as well (because it really only works well for boys). It's sung to the tune of Must Be Santa so has the added benefit of getting on Andrew's nerves (when it's not the Christmas season (but it snowed today so I'm pretty sure we can count the Christmas season as on)).

"Who's my little baby boy?" I sing.

"Baby Xander!" Zoë will answer.

"Xander is my little baby boy!" I sing back. Then I ask, "Who brings our family lots of joy?"

The answer, of course, should be Xander (or Alex; we're still torn), but this morning Zoë smiled impishly and said, "No, Zoë! Zoë bings joy!"

That she does. But unfortunately, girl doesn't rhyme with joy...so I never sang this song to my girls.

I suppose I could sing it to her now because while girl doesn't rhyme with joy, it does rhyme with twirl (and while Zoë wasn't so great at twirling when she was a baby, she's a pretty talented twirler these days).

Who's my precious little girl?
Zoë is my precious little girl!
Who likes to run and jump and twirl?
Zoë likes to run and jump and twirl!
Jump and twirl! Little girl!
Must be Zoë! Must be Zoë!
Must be Zoë, Zoë Heiss!

The Longest Day

I found the mother's lounge on Sunday, not because I wanted a secluded place to nurse my baby (I'm totally cool with nursing in public...so that when your baby has a poop-splosion while nursing in the middle of Sunday School it gets all over your lap and the chair you're sitting on (but you just keep on nursing while your husband uses a burp cloth to mop it all up because if you stop nursing the baby would start screaming, bringing more attention to your slightly disruptive, poop-covered family (not that I know from experience))) but because baby's big sister wanted a closer look at baby...but then lost her balance and face-planted on baby's face.

He was not happy about that so I fled the chapel before he could really start crying.

Big sister, likewise, was rather unhappy so Andrew scooped her up and fled the chapel as well.

Tears all around!

I ended up in the mother's lounge, rocking Alexander. Another mother was in there trying to nurse her baby (who had reached the curious stage and wanted to eat but explore (life's one big conundrum)). She ooohed and ahhed over how new and tiny Alexander was, but also mentioned not missing that stage.

"They grow so fast!" she said. "It's like you blink and they're six weeks old and out of that newborn stage. Of course, that could be because everything is a blur. It's like a six-week-long day where you never really fall asleep and never really wake up."

And that feels pretty true. Alexander has been up every two hours (at least) for the past three weeks. But last night? Last night he slept for four hours without a break. So we're both feeling pretty great this morning (but still, as always, ready for a nap).

Baptism, A New Birth

Today was our double-whammy celebration of Miriam's baptism and Alexander's blessing and, continuing with the theme of our life recently, it sure was a whirlwind of a day! 

After convincing Andrew that making crepes for a party of 30 people would be altogether too much work for Friday evening, we decided on simple things like muffins and cookies from Costco and soup. Andrew wasn't entirely on board with the soup because he thought it was too early in the day for soup and this was going to be a brunch-type thing, but I pointed out that (a) it's fall so soup is a totally rational meal choice and (b) 11:30 is close enough to actual lunch that having soup wouldn't be frowned upon. Plus, Wikipedia categorizes soup as a brunch food...so it's basically official.

Then, after convincing Andrew that we would certainly not have time to prepare everything in the morning (we have five kids to get ready—FIVE!), we stayed up late making soup, cutting up fruit, and deciding which tray would hold what food. This was a very good thing because the morning ended up being quite rushed (from my perspective). I was so busy doing hair and putting clothes on people and changing diapers and bathing children and nursing and so forth that I hardly even made it downstairs before we dashed out the door.

Alexander wore the same outfit that Benjamin wore on his blessing day (I used the word "whirlwind" for his blessing day as well...huh...maybe life is just always complicated). The kids really wanted him to wear a bowtie, but all of Benjamin's bowties look ridiculously huge on him so Rachel dug out a red hair bow and we clipped that on his shirt, completing his dapper look:

I've got this...or not...

Last night I grabbed my toothbrush and squeezed some toothpaste on it. As I was raising it to my mouth I happened to glance at the toothbrush holder and saw...my toothbrush.

My mind started going a million miles an hour...

"Wait a second," I thought to myself, pleased that I had caught myself before brushing my teeth with someone else's toothbrush (one of the worst feelings in the world (not that I know from experience or anything)) but a little confused because I could have sworn that I grabbed my toothbrush.

Indeed, the toothbrush I was holding was my own. But the toothbrush still in the toothbrush holder was also my own.

Oh, that's right. I replaced my toothbrush the night before with a new—but identical—one. Had I forgotten to throw my old one away? No, I distinctly remember tossing it into the trash, which means...

"Ew!" I squealed, jerking the toothbrush away from my half-open mouth.

"What?" Andrew asked.

"This is my old toothbrush," I said. "The one that I threw away yesterday!"

"That means...ew..."

Yes, that means that one of my well-meaning and oh-so-very-helpful children dug it out of the garbage can and returned it to the toothbrush holder.

This girl

Zoë had cereal with her older siblings this morning. And then when I finally started getting breakfast for myself she started getting cereal for herself again. So she ate that, but I made oatmeal, so she had to have oatmeal, too. And then while we were I was cleaning up she decided she wanted to have another bowl of cereal.

I was not on board with this idea because she'd already dirtied three bowls with three different breakfasts and it was time to stop eating and move on with our day. 

But she was in a particularly sour/defiant/crankenheimer mood this morning and did not appreciate being told what to do. So when I went upstairs to get a load of laundry, she helped herself to the pantry. 

At least she listened to the part where I told her that I didn't want her to dirty any more bowls...

This is Halloween

"You're going to be here in the morning, right?" I asked Andrew last night. "Because I can get the kids ready for school and out the door on a regular day just fine, but I'm not sure I can do Halloween on my own."

My children have never worn their Halloween costumes to school before. Their old school(s) did a "Mathquerade" event every year...after school...and well before Halloween. 

While getting my children into costumes before school seemed like a hassle I'd prefer to not to experience, I was happy that this year we were invited to a grand total of zero costume parties before Halloween: no trunk-or-treat or ward party, no school parties, and the one Halloween party didn't require costumes (score). And why did that make me so happy?

Because...who has two thumbs and finished making Halloween costumes last night?

THIS GIRL!

Truthfully, the older girls put their costumes together pretty much on their own (just a little bit of guidance on my part), Zoë landed a lovely hand-me-down costume, and Alexander wore a little monster sleeper, so it was mostly just Benjamin's costume I had to worry about.

Andrew assured me that he'd be around in the morning to help with the kids—and thank goodness for that because little miss Zoë stumbled out of her room feeling cranky and...never quite got over that.

Here she is having some morning snuggles with the A-Team (Alexander and Andrew):