What happens when...

...Kaia is asked to be Mary in the ward nativity pageant?

You get a girl who has her entire outfit planned out for a week beforehand. And she remembers to bring the taxes! She was ready to pull out her money from the green purse to pay the taxes throughout the entire pageant. She was concerned afterwards that no one took them. I love this girl and her thoughtfulness! (And below see a thoughtful Joseph leading Mary in so gently and Asher loving his role as a shepherd.)






What happens when...Leila has her older sister's baby wardrobe at her disposal but all kinds of adorable new clothes have come out in the last 5 years?

I can't help but buy an outfit here and there. This dress is gorgeous in person. It's definitely cuter than anything I own, although I wouldn't be able to find anything like this for me for $9. My mom wants to have pictures taken of our entire family when we're all together for Christmas with everyone wearing black, red, and white.


What happens when...I'm on the phone for 5 minutes with my dad?

My kids construct a "spider's web" throughout the whole living room/kitchen/dining room. They were so silent as they worked that I had no idea they were so busy. They came in whispering something about a secret they couldn't tell me about but they wanted me to close my eyes and follow them. After seeing it, I retreated to the room to finish my conversation. I did have to draw the line on their fun once I saw Kaia coming out of the bathroom with wet clothes to hang on the spider's web turned clothes line.

Asher's Announcement

Asher has been in one stage of potty training or another for at least a year and a half. I haven't been stressed about it. I've heard that boys take longer than girls to potty train, and it's honestly easier to just have kids in diapers most of the time. Asher has known how to use the toilet for a long time, but he has never been consistent about remembering to use it. As long as he is only in "unders," he remembers to go to the bathroom, but as soon as he gets pants on he forgets that he doesn't have a diaper on and has an accident.

This all seems to have changed 3 days ago. 4 days ago we bought him a new package of Cars underwear. He woke up the next morning wanting to wear Lightning McQueen. I told him he needed to go use the potty before he could put the underwear on.

A couple of minutes later, I walked into the bathroom and Asher made the following announcement: "I went pee and poop, Mom. I'm potty trained now!"

I wasn't really planning on potty training a week before going on vacation (to visit my family for Christmas in Florida), but I figured we might as well run with it. It's been 3 days now and the only accident he's had was one time when he didn't get unbuttoned in time.

Asher's pretty excited about one thing in particular: "Now I can go to the ball place!" Let me explain - in the past, I've tried to motivate Asher to get potty trained so he could join Kaia in the "ball place" or kids' play area at IKEA. Of course, I myself had dual motives in encouraging him - both to get him potty trained and to look forward to an hour of shopping by myself (now with Leila, but she's relatively easy when it comes to shopping). Asher later added some detail to his statement: "Now I can go to the ball place, and Kaia can go, too, because she's already potty trained. Then we can be friends in there!"

I decided to spare you pictures of Asher in his unders (he likes to wear them backwards so he can see the cool pictures when he looks down although I'm working with him to break that habit :). Instead, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of the kids dressing up as I was nursing Leila the other day. Kaia had the brilliant idea to dress in Asher's clothes and vice versa. Asher was fair game for a while, but partway through our little photo shoot he started to run away. Kaia yelled after him, "Stop, Ash! You're not going to be delicate anymore!!"



The kids had fun, but it's probably a good thing for Peter's sanity that Asher was Batman by the time he got home. :)

Baby Blessing

Yesterday I came across this quote in the Ensign by President Hinckley: "There is no substitute under the heavens for productive labor. Is is the process by which dreams become realities. It is the process by which idle visions become dynamic achievements."

I thoroughly enjoy productive labor. One of the women from our ward (church congregation) feels the same. When I was called as the Relief Society president earlier this year, she stopped me in the hall at church and said, "Your first job is to let me know all of the women in the ward who are pregnant so I can make a gift for them." Vilma shares her talents of crocheting, knitting, and sewing to make beautiful gifts for the smallest new members of the ward. When Vilma learned that we had a girl, she crocheted a beautiful dress, bonnet, and booties for her to wear for her baby blessing. This outfit is so well made I can see it being in our family for generations!



Here's Vilma holding Leila (as you can see, Leila was sacked out throughout the blessing and the next 2 hours of church).

She knows her own mind

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go."
--Dr. Seuss

Anyone who knows Kaia knows that she knows her own mind. She was dressed to impress on Sunday when she went to church with Grandma Mary. She found this coat when we pulled out the baby clothes for Leila; it was Kaia's when she was about a year old. And she insisted that she have twisty braids in her hair with the headband placed behind it. Kaia's pizazz never ceases to amaze me. :)

Leila's Birth Story

First, some pictures...it took a ridiculous number of attempts to get this one good picture of Leila. It is hard to get a flattering picture of a newborn!

Kaia is so proud that she can hold Leila on her own. I've caught her trying to pick her up on her own a couple of times.

I'm never able to take pictures of Asher near Leila because I have to keep a close watch on what's happening. He loves her too much sometimes! Putting these glasses on Leila was his doing:


I’ll admit it. I am a passionate advocate of natural birth. Here’s why: my two natural birth experiences have been THE MOST exhilarating and empowering experiences of my life. No other experience I’ve had has even come close to replicating the feelings of empowerment I’ve had immediately following Asher’s and Leila’s births. In fact, Asher’s birth triggered a change in me where I became more assertive and began pursuing personal goals with much more zeal than I ever had before. If I could give birth completely naturally, I could do anything!

Let me make clear, first of all, that I am very grateful for modern technology. I am so grateful that C-sections are as safe as they are so that Kaia could be born safely (she was breech). Second, I do not in any way judge those who use drugs to get through labor. But I do wish people would be more willing to give natural birth a shot.

At the beginning of this pregnancy, I heard about the Hypnobabies program, a self-study course to prepare for labor and birth by learning to deeply relax. I was a little skeptical of the claim that labor could be pain-free using this program, but I figured that since I made it through Asher’s labor just using my own resources and intuition, it certainly couldn’t hurt to prepare for labor using Hypnobabies. Here’s a brief explanation from the website: “Many people think hypnosis is like the stage hypnosis shows they've seen where people seem to be unable to control themselves, act goofy and provide entertainment for the audience.
 In reality it is a state of focused concentration where the body and mind relax together. Hypnosis is very simply: a natural state of mind in which the body and mind are extremely relaxed and yet the mind is also highly aware and focused.”

On to the actual birth story…My mom flew in on Tuesday evening (November 3). At the time my mom flew in, I was having Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing painful. I woke up the next morning around 7:15 feeling crampy. I wasn't sure if it meant anything so Peter left for work. By 8:00 a.m. I started timing contractions; they were every 5 minutes lasting 1 minute each! I didn’t want Peter to come home if this was false labor, but my mom convinced me to call Peter and tell him he'd better come home!

By the time Peter got home and we finished packing the hospital bag, it was 10:00 when we were heading out the door. Both my mom and Peter were completely stressed about me getting to the hospital in time, but I was so relaxed. During each contraction, I would just stop where I was and rock my hips back and forth as I focused all my energy internally. Kaia's farewell to us was "Birth in the car! Definitely yes!" Fortunately we made it to the hospital without having a birth in the car. By the time we got into the hospital, it was about 10:45.

I had been hoping to labor in a birthing tub, but by the time we got there I just knew that I wasn't going to have time to get in a tub. When Peter mentioned this to me (he knew how important that had been to me), I said that I’d rather have a fast labor than a tub labor.

The nurse checked me when we first got there; I was dilated to a 4, and my contractions were about every 3 minutes. I had the same problem in this labor as in Asher's - the contraction monitor never showed my contractions going past 40% intensity even though I knew they were much more intense than that. In fact, I later learned that when the midwife first arrived, the nurse suggested that they might want to send me home because she didn't believe I was really going to give birth anytime soon. The midwife came in, looked at me and then at the monitor, and asked me how intense my contractions really were (I looked so relaxed that she didn’t believe I was very far along in my labor). I told her the contractions were pretty intense. She decided to check me and was shocked to find that I was dilated to an 8 - I had gone from a 4 to an 8 in half an hour!

I got off the bed and onto a birthing ball. Being on the birthing ball was incredibly helpful. Rocking my hips back and forth made the contractions much more bearable. Even still, the contractions were getting pretty intense pretty quickly. The midwife could tell by my reaction to the contractions that things were speeding up, so she suggested that if I got up on the bed on my side, the baby might be ready to come out. I stood up and immediately felt the baby ready to come out. The feeling of her dropping terrified me, so I sat immediately back down on the ball! I was worried about that next step. With encouragement from the midwife and Peter, I stood up again and got on the bed at 12:24. My water broke on its own at 12:25, and after 6 intense minutes of pushing, Leila was born at 12:31 p.m.

My birth experience was very intense but so worth it. I’m not sure whether or not I would say that the labor was pain-free. I would definitely say it was more intense than it was painful. Pushing was painful – thank goodness that only lasted 6 minutes. It was amazing to give birth completely naturally. I learned in the next couple of days that of the 9 babies our pediatric nurse was in charge of, ours was the only baby not born by C-section.

The long and short of my experience is that I completely recommend natural birth and the Hypnobabies program. Here in summation, are a few of the things that using Hypnobabies did for me:
• I would usually listen to the program on my iPod after middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom. During my previous pregnancies, I would often lie awake for a long time before falling asleep even though I would be extremely tired. Listening to my hypnosis would put me to sleep, usually within minutes! The program still works if you fall asleep because your subconscious mind is absorbing all the messages. (It may sound hokey, but I’m convinced it works!) The price of the program was honestly worth it just for the great sleep I had after listening.

• I felt wonderful this entire pregnancy. The Sunday before I had Leila, people at church were asking how I was feeling and I felt like saying that I was feeling too good to be having a baby within days. I attribute this to the Hypnobabies – the relaxation that came from practicing decreased the degree to which I felt the aches and pains I’ve had in my previous pregnancies.

• I felt very empowered through the Hypnobabies program even while pregnant. The program focuses on how you, as the pregnant woman, are able to make your own decisions for yourself and your baby. This encouragement led me to switch from my OB to midwives at about 6 months pregnant. I’ve never regretted that decision.

• I wholeheartedly believe that my labor was only 4 ½ hours because I was so relaxed; instead of fighting against the pain, my body worked with the contractions to get Leila here so quickly.

• I was also able to use my Hypnobabies to get through the afterbirth pains – those really do get worse with each birth! Relaxing during them made them much more bearable.

• Although I was so grateful that I had a natural birth with Asher, for months afterwards, every time I thought about or talked about the labor, my stomach would start clenching up and I would almost feel sick to my stomach. I don’t feel that at all when thinking about Leila’s birth. I guess the relaxation I felt during the labor made a difference even in how I remember the laboring experience.

It's a...

GIRL!!!

Leila Marie Christensen was born Wednesday, November 4 @ 12:31 p.m.

As it turns out, I was only 1 for 3 in my accuracy of predictions with this birth.

1. I was sure this baby would be an October baby, but she held on until November 4, which was actually Kaia's due date (although Kaia was born almost 2 weeks early).

2. I was pretty sure this baby was going to be a boy, but I was definitely wrong!

3. I did have a feeling that this was going to be a pretty fast labor, and I was right on the mark with that one. My total labor was 4 1/2 hours.

To say Kaia is thrilled about having a sister is probably an understatement. In fact, she broke into spontaneous song earlier this morning: "She's a girl! She's a girl! I'm so happy she's a girl! You're a cutie patootie - oh yessiree!!!"

There have been several declarations that "She is The Adorable." And even: "She's the cutest thing in my whole fancy life!"

In preparation for coming to the hospital, Kaia got dressed in all kinds of fancy clothes to teach Leila what it means to be fancy. She also made Leila a necklace so she can "be a Native American girl." Kaia's going to be a great big sister to her little sister.


Asher's first question when I talked to him on the phone once the baby was born was, "Did Leila Marie pop out of your belly?" I think Asher's getting used to Leila being a girl, but he did ask me, "Why is Hermie not a boy?"


My mom with the kids:


Seeing Peter in the hospital bed got some chuckles from the nurses. Peter was a little embarrassed, but I got tired of sitting in the bed all the time and his couch/bed was not nearly as comfortable.


On our way home:

I was planning to write some of Leila's birth story here (I know some people are interested in my experience using Hypnobabies), but that will have to wait. I've just sent my mom and Peter out the door with the other kids to go shopping at Costco. What a contrast to when Kaia was born! I was nearly terrified to be left alone with a newborn. Today I could hardly wait for everyone to leave so I can just enjoy Leila and a quiet house. I realize I can use this time to get lunch, shower, make the bed and tidy up the house, sit on the couch snuggling with Leila, or finish writing a blog post. I'm thinking getting lunch and snuggling with Leila are my top priorities right now, so I'll get the story up when I can.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween has come and gone and Hermie is still inside! To be honest, I'm completely surprised this baby will not have an October birthday. I really thought he/she was going to be born early (just 5 days to go until the due date!). I had really wanted a Halloween baby when I was pregnant with Kaia but was then relieved when she was born October 23 instead. This time I really did not want a Halloween baby. I told Hermie on Friday night, "Baby, if you choose to be born tomorrow, just remember that you will have to live with that decision for the rest of your life." I'm totally fine with Hermie still being inside, as long as I don't go overdue! My mom will arrive on Tuesday, and I'll be glad to have the help.

Halloween preparations have kind of taken the back burner this year. We did finally carve a pumpkin according to Kaia's original design:


On to trick-or-treating...

Our kids were thrilled to finally wear their costumes for the real Halloween. We went to a parade in the neighboring town, followed by some trick-or-treating along the main street. We only made it one block of trick-or-treating when Kaia exclaimed, "We have so much candy - this is GREAT!" They each had about a dozen pieces at this point. They were happy calling it quits, so we headed back to the car. I had told the kids not to eat too much of their candy yet since we also had a ward party that afternoon. Kaia's response was, "I know! Why don't we each eat 3 pieces of candy and then save the rest?" And that's exactly what she did. I was very impressed by her self-control.

I was feeling like I should try to be a little more festive than I had been in recent weeks, so I had the kids help me make Halloween sugar cookies for our ward party on Halloween night. I was inspired by this guest post by my friend Lori on the blog Bloom. I have to admit that this turned out to be way more of a project than I had anticipated, but I was rather pleased that the sugar cookies turned out soft and delicious!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture before these were saran wrapped, and then I learned that saran wrap and sticky frosting do not bode well for all those time intensive designs. They still tasted great!


We had the face painting crayons out so Kaia could get Native American designs on her cheeks. She took it upon herself to draw a propellor plane on Peter's cheek. She knows that he loves World War II, so she's already begun planning his World War II birthday party!

Shake your what?

You know those times when you say something in front of your kids that you immediately wish you hadn't said? That happened this last week when we were watching a friend's daughter. The little girl was really getting into dancing with the music from our keyboard. Without thinking I exclaimed, "Shake your booty!" I followed that immediately with, "Oops, I shouldn't have said that." I really didn't want to be the one to teach my kids that saying. Of course, Kaia immediately asked, "What's a booty?" I tried to deflect her questions by just saying it means to dance and shake your body. Later in the day, Kaia looked up at me with this look on her face like she was trying to remember something. Then she exclaimed, "Move your buddy!" I like her version much better.

Kaia has recently taken up dancing as a hobby. I don't mean with dance lessons - this is just spontaneous, uninhibited dancing in the comfort of our own home. It shocks me because I am an extremely inhibited dancer. I would rather do just about anything rather than have anyone see me dance. Here's a sample of her new dancing skills:


Move your buddy, girl!

Some Daily Life

I woke up to Kaia saying things you just don't want to hear before 7 am. Kaia was saying, "No, don't cut there, Asher! I'll show you where to cut!" I thought, what is going on?

Moments after these declarations, Kaia came bounding into my bed and said, "Mom, do you want to come see the ponies? I'm making them beautiful. I snipped a little bit here and a little bit there to give them a haircut. And I put hairspray in their hair. We're saloning them!"


Let me backtrack a moment. Yesterday Kaia was the recipient of oodles of My Little Ponies from an older girl at church who was done with them herself but wanted to pass them on to another home where they would be loved. She picked the right place!

I wasn't sure how Asher would respond to all these girly toys in the house. As it turns out, he loves them, too. When Peter saw last night how much Asher was enjoying them, he jokingly told Asher in a manly voice that he didn't want to play with them...but then Peter admitted that he used to love braiding the hair of his sister's My Little Ponies (but don't tell him I told you :).


On Sunday afternoon, Asher did something that I'm guessing is a boy thing - he stuck a bead up his nose! We were on our way to pick Peter up from church once his responsibilities there were done. As we walked to the car, Asher said, "I put the bead in my nose." I turned around and asked, "Are you joking?!" Sure enough, the bead was in his nose. I was pretty scared as this is the first time either of my kids have done something like that. I called Peter in a panic, not knowing if I would need to go to the emergency room (I know I was kind of overreacting). I gave Asher explicit instructions NOT to touch his nose anymore (he had been pushing the bead up higher in an attempt to get it out). Then I let Peter have the job of extracting it with tweezers. The joys of parenting! (You're all spared from seeing the inside of Asher's nose since the bead was removed before we got a picture of that. :)

36 Weeks and Nesting...

First, thank you to everyone who gave an opinion on our baby names. Now we'll wait to see who Hermie is before making any final decisions.

I hit 36 weeks on Friday, and I'm getting a little panicky. We had our hospital tour this morning, and I felt vaguely nauseous as I thought of impending labor - at least it only lasts a few hours (hopefully) and then we'll finally get to meet Hermie. My nesting urges have been coming on strong. A week ago, I cleaned my house from top to bottom, thinking that if the baby came early, it might just break me to come home to unmopped floors. :) Then I realized that if the baby goes to term, I'll have to mop the floor a few times more to have a clean floor to come home to. Anyway, here's the belly at 36 weeks:


Some of my nesting instincts have been stranger than others. On Monday, I just had to find Halloween costumes for the kids. We headed out to a couple of consignment stores and found the perfect costumes. Asher will be a "Sharptooth" and Kaia is Pocahontas. She's been on a big Native American kick ever since seeing Disney's Pocahontas in August. I'd say the money I paid for her costume has already been worth it since Kaia has been Pocahontas every day this week. In fact, as we've headed out to the grocery store and on other errands, she tells me, "Mom, don't tell anyone I'm pretend. I'm really Pocahontas." She literally beams when people say, "Look, there's Pocahontas!"



This picture illustrates another one of my stranger nesting instincts - buying 22 boxes of cereal at Wegman's, one of our favorite grocery stores. The sell their own version of some of our favorite cereals like Wheat Chex (theirs is Wheat Squares) for half the price of the brand name cereal. Cereal is a real staple around here and I was getting very worried about the imminent arrival of the baby when we were down to only a few boxes in the house.


I've been making good headway on some of my other projects. This week I finished up Hermie's blanket:


And I'm almost done with Christmas stockings. I need to finish the last of the stitching on the boy stocking and then add embellishments to both of them. I had made the girl stocking a few years ago but then couldn't find it when I was pregnant with Kaia, so I made her a different one. I figured I would make the boy one so I would be covered either way. It will be easy to sew the needed stocking up once the baby is here, but there's no way I would have time for all that cross stitching after baby's arrival.


I definitely have the tendency to get obsessive about my projects sometimes, so I've been grateful to come across a couple of quotes that have really meant a lot to me in the last couple of weeks. First, in the recent General RS Broadcast, Sister Julie Beck quoted Elder Uchtdorf:

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught: “A wise man once distinguished between ‘the noble art of getting things done’ and ‘a nobler art of leaving things undone.’ True ‘wisdom in life,’ he taught, consists of ‘the elimination of non-essentials.’ ” President Uchtdorf then asked: “What are the nonessential things that clutter your days and steal your time? What are the habits you may have developed that do not serve a useful purpose? What are the unfinished or unstarted things that could add vigor, meaning, and joy to your life?”

Then this quote from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin from his address in the April 2002 General Conference:

Sometimes we feel that the busier we are, the more important we are—as though our busyness defines our worth. Brothers and sisters, we can spend a lifetime whirling about at a feverish pace, checking off list after list of things that in the end really don't matter.

That we do a lot may not be so important. That we focus the energy of our minds, our hearts, and our souls on those things of eternal significance—that is essential.

So I've been trying to eliminate the non-essentials from my life, which mostly means that I'm spending far less time on the computer. And I'm trying to spend my days enjoying Kaia and Asher before the dynamics of our family change and my evenings pursuing or finishing things that "add vigor, meaning, and joy" to my life.

Name Poll, Part II

Thank you so much to everyone who commented so far! I really appreciate the feedback. The pronunciation we would go with is Layla, but I don't like how it looks spelled like that. So here's the Name Poll, Part II...which spelling of the two below do you prefer?

Leila Marie OR Laela Marie

I initially liked Laela better, but recently I have been leaning more towards Leila because it is spelled according to Hawaiian pronunciations like both my name and Kaia's name. Let me know what you think!

As for the boy's name...I had a dream at about 4 months pregnant. In the dream, I was trying to remember a dream where I had heard the most natural name in the world for our baby (at least that's what I thought in the dream). That name is Cole. I have no idea if it was inspiration or just a crazy pregnancy dream. :) The middle name will be Alexander, which was my great-grandfather's middle name. I'm not 100% sure if I'm sold on Cole. So if Hermie is a boy, his name will most likely be either Cole Alexander or Noah Alexander. You can give your opinion on either of those if you want, too.

In other news...this seems like a strange thing to blog about, but it's something that will have a huge impact on our lives so it seems strange not to mention it. Peter was called as bishop this last weekend. We're just starting to get a taste for the time commitment required by this calling. I will be released soon as Relief Society president.

Name Poll, Part I

To me, the hardest thing about not knowing Hermie's gender is narrowing down the names that I like. However, the girl's name is set in stone because Kaia will hear nothing about any other name. She even insists this name can work for a boy! My biggest concern is the spelling. So I'm holding a poll right here. I have lived all my life with a name that nobody can say or spell correctly and that gets pretty old. Peter has a favorite spelling of this girl's name, but I am a little worried that people will mispronounce it.

Now where you all come in for the poll...I have written the name below. I would love to have as many responses as possible about your first impression on how this name is pronounced. Please don't let anybody else's comments sway you. I really just want as many opinions as possible so I can get an idea of whether or not people will know how to say this name just based on seeing it and not hearing it first.

Without further ado, the name is (middle name in parentheses)...

Leila (Marie)

Utah

Well, life has been a little crazy around here to say the least. On top of all the normal life stuff, we just got home from a wonderful vacation in Utah. I'm so sorry to all of you friends we didn't get to see. The trip was jam-packed from beginning to end, most notably with the wedding of Peter's sister, Anneke, and a 4-day vacation-within-a-vacation for me at Education Week at BYU, with my in-laws taking care of my kids. This was the first time I've ever been away from my kids - EVER. It was a little overdue. :) And a lot wonderful.

I thought I'd just post a sampling of pictures to give an overview of our trip. This is not at all a complete picture of our trip, but it shows a few of the highlights (there were many).

Kaia got to meet the pilot on the flight to Utah. She had created a couple pieces of artwork on her own initiative, and this earned her the chance to march right up to the cockpit to meet them. (Asher started to cry when they asked if he wanted to come in the cockpit; maybe he thought they'd try to get him to fly the plane?)


We got to see my baby brother Micah for the first time in 2 1/2 years since he returned home from his mission to Taiwan.


My kids absolutely adored being outdoors. On at least one occasion, our kids spent 9-10 hours outside in my in-laws yard. Having a yard is the one thing I really long for.


The wedding party:




On a camping trip, which I opted out of at 6 1/2 months pregnant (and went to see my grandma instead):




My sister, Sienna, came into town for a few days with her adorable son, Eamon:


We had a really tough time getting a picture of the cousins together (Eamon is my kids' only cousin so far). Maybe Asher's stinky feet were the problem?


We went hiking in the Uintas. Kaia proves that you can be graceful anywhere.


We had a great time and now we're settling into being home again. I hit 30 weeks pregnant on Friday, so I'm going into some form of panic mode realizing that a newborn will be joining our family sooner than I probably feel ready for. I think my nesting instinct is in overdrive - I don't feel an overwhelming urge to clean, but I do have a list as long as my arm of projects I'd like to complete before the baby comes. Thanks to my mom's help watching the kids while she was in town, I did finish the most important item on the list - to finish the scrapbook documenting me and Peter falling in love in China. I feel a great sense of relief now that that's done. If I could only finish every other item on the list, I'm sure I'd feel completely ready for a newborn again...ha ha.

Fun with Family

My mom and my sister, Brianna, came into town a couple of weeks ago for a two week visit. We had such a great time with them. Following are some of the highlights:

Kaia constantly talks about hosting parties. She'll wake up and say, "Today we're going to have a party because it's my unbirthday. We're going to invite Isabella and Sydney and..." I decided we should finally just hold a real party with some friends, hoping that would get it out of her system. Kaia's request on the invitation was as follows: "Please dress up in pretty clothes. Please, please, oh please, dress in the fanciest, fanciest clothes that you ever have!"

I was so glad my mom was here for the party. She is so enthusiastic and fun, and she kept the kids mesmerized with a story about the Princess and the Frog in a way I just wouldn't have been able to accomplish. My mom was really the glue that held the whole party together.

Kaia enjoyed herself. Of course, that night she was already talking about the next princess party she wants to hold. So much for satisfying her craving for holding parties!


We took a quick 2-day trip up to Palmyra to see the pageant. My mom's friends from Thailand were in the show; her friend's husband was the wicked King Noah:

I loved having 2 more sets of arms to carry the kids. Brianna is such a wonderful aunt. One of the kids' favorite things to do while she was here was to sit on the couch and have her read one book after another to them. I loved having a teenager around who's capable of and willing to help around the house. One day I was caught up in doing something when it came time to knead some dough for pizza. I asked Brianna if she knew how to knead, and away she went. It was awesome!


We also took a trip to the Bronx Zoo.



As we were driving away from the zoo after a full day of fun, Asher and I had the following conversation:

Asher: We forgot to see the lions!

Me: We saw them. Remember, you were on my shoulders?

Asher: Well...we forgot to see the dandelions!

The hardest part of having family come is having them go. Kaia was particularly sad. Fortunately, we'll see my mom (and maybe Brianna?) in a few months when the baby is born. As a side note, we seem to have found a nickname for the baby. Peter was referring to the baby a couple of nights ago and accidentally combined the words "her" and "him" to say "Herm." So this baby is Herm or Hermie until further notice. I jokingly said that we can name the baby Herman if it's a boy and Hermione if it's a girl - the only problem is that Peter actually likes Hermione and thinks that would really work. Fortunately I have Kaia to veto that name in favor of the girl's name we really have picked out, which is fully Kaia approved.