In the Bleak Midwinter

And the day started out so well...

Despite the fact that my grand plans to get up at 6 this morning to get my workout on were foiled by little miss sugar pop who woke up at 1 and 3 last night, I still managed to force myself out of bed this morning at 7 as Scott was getting ready for work. In my bleary-eyed, foggy-brained stupor I gave Ethan (who by the way sets his alarm for 6:59 every morning so that he doesn't miss Arthur) the go-ahead to play some Wii before school, sluggishly put my running clothes on in preparation for Week 2 of the "From Couch Potato to Running a 5K in 8 weeks" program, and stumbled down to the basement where the treadmill and my iPod (loaded with the Saturday session of October's General Conference in an effort to get my day off to the right start) greeted me in the cold, cold, dawn.

But first things first. On Friday Jane had her 4 month check up. The doctor confirmed that she is indeed a fine baby girl and bestowed upon me the gift of the decade. "Based on her weight and age," he said, "she should definitely be able to go 8-10 hours without NEEDING to eat at night." With that jewel of knowledge glowing in my mind, I got home and made the executive decision that it was time for Jane to move on out. Of my bedroom that is. With every little noise of hers waking ME up all night long, and us having to worry about waking HER up every time we came in or out of the room, it was just TIME.

Not so sure about this new gig...

...and loving it.

4 month stats:
15 lbs. 4 1/2 oz. (85th percentile)
26 inches (90-95 percentile)

With Jane's transition came another -- perhaps BIGGER -- transition. Sophie is now living with Grace. Dun, dun, DUN. Hahahaha. We had been telling her that she could move in after her birthday (which is next month) but in the end I decided there are too many other things that are supposed to be happening when she turns 3 (such as finally pulling the plug and leaving her pacifier for the "pluggie fairy," potty-training, etc.) and I thought it would be best if she were already used to sleeping in a real bed and sharing a room with a real pest. I mean Grace. J/K. Kind of. No really -- Grace is incapable of falling asleep if there is anyone else in the room with her, and she kind of makes it impossible for anyone else in the room to fall asleep either. It's like it sends her party girl sensibilities into hyper-drive, or something. Nevertheless, they have to share the room, so with great trepidation on our part and exuberant jubilation on the girls' part, Friday night was the night. They were SOOOOOO excited for this first "sister sleepover" (or "sista sleepova" as my sisters and I called them growing up) that I knew we were in for a treat.

Night one resulted in me having to go in there to sit until they finally fell asleep around 10. Night two yielded slightly earlier results with Sophie falling asleep around 9 -- although this was only after we separated the 2 and made Grace get in our bed to go to sleep. Action had to be taken MUCH earlier last night after Sophie was on Day 3 without a nap and this time Sophie was the one to be put in our bed and she thankfully fell asleep a little after 7. The poor little super muppet is one TIRED little girl. She's taken to leaning wearily on any and all free surfaces these past few days, and the pluggie has been CONSTANTLY in her mouth. Let's just say I'm not looking forward to weaning that habit in a few weeks here.





Now back to my day. It is the bleak midwinter indeed. For some crazy reason I always psych myself into thinking that once Christmas is over, winter should be over as well. Apparently that is not the case. It is COLD here, and snowy, and wintry, and this past week -- BLEAK. The snow day from school last Thursday alone just about did me in with all 4 kids at home ALL day long, and the weekend didn't do much to improve things.

But at least this morning started out well. It should have been a sign, however, when Ethan came down to tell me that the baby had woken up about 10 minutes into my workout. And while he couldn't be torn away from his beloved Mario Kart, at least the girls were gracious enough to "babysit" Jane for me while I finished up the last 20 minutes of my "run." {Note to CPS, Jane was in the crib the whole time and all the girls did while "babysitting" was jump around the room like kangaroos to make her laugh. That and I'm sure they yelled "boo" at her more than a few times. And the monitor was on the whole time for Ethan to listen to them and come run down and tell me if the baby started to freak out. Which luckily she didn't because that little Janie Boo is good as gold. I really am a good mother. I promise.}

Unfortunately the circus started as soon as I came down with her, and although there were a few bright spots in an otherwise dreary day (we had a nice morning activity of playing with play dough and I thoroughly enjoyed nap time while the 2 big kids were at school and the 2 littles were in bed) all-in-all I wish it were spring. At least then I wouldn't have to hear Ethan freak out on a daily basis when I remind him he has to wear socks to school when it is 17 degrees outside.

Anyway, my early morning + GRACE + melting down children by the end of the day + a disastrous attempt at an FHE lesson tonight has left me physically and mentally exhausted and spouting lines to Scott such as "I don't negotiate with terrorists" in reference to child number 2 at bedtime. "She's not a terrorist" Scott tried to comfort me as I punched my time card out for the night. Perhaps not, but seeing as to how she has terrorized my day from beginning to end I would prefer not to deal with her til tomorrow. Because after all, tomorrow is always another day.




Oh, and P.S. I'm really not quite as depressive as this post might suggest. There are happy things on the horizon to look forward to -- such as Book Club later this week -- and I really do love my kids. All of them. Even, and perhaps ESPECIALLY Grace. Hahaha.

P.P.S I found a really good recipe online this morning for play dough -- it sounded weird at first because it calls for vanilla, but as the recipe author stated it really does improve the texture and makes it smell good as well.
Best Play Dough Recipe

In a saucepan, Stir:
1 c. flour
1/2 c. salt
1 tsp. cream of tartar

Mix:
1 c. water
1 TBL. oil
1 TBL. vanilla extract
food coloring

Whisk wet and dry ingredients till smooth over Medium heat. Cook until nearly set, then remove from heat, and knead when cool. Store in an airtight container.

Parkour!

"The goal is to get from point A to point B as creatively as possible -- so technically they are doing Parkour, as long as point A is delusion and point B is the hospital."

In Parkour (which is actually a real thing, believe it or not -- just Google or Youtube it), people run around doing crazy things like jumping off buildings or performing ridiculous human tricks on the sides of walls. Sure it's athletic and mildly impressive, but mostly it's just bizarre, a bit all over the place, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- kind of like what this blog post will end up like if you manage to make it all the way to the end.

Somehow Parkour became the catch-phrase of our vacation -- with Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" as our theme song -- and the vay-cay culminated with a hilarious (at least to us) video of the kids doing their own version of stupid human tricks. Overall, fun was had, memories were made, and lots of dishes were done. By Scott. The poor little lamb. He deserves a medal for surviving a Hansen family Christmas. Hahaha. No, seriously. He does. For the past 2 weeks and 3 days he has shared our house with first Freddie, then my mom, Amy, Jacob, and Laura, and finally Sarah, Andrew, and Eleanor. The following is a quick run-down of how it all went down.

Mom and the kids were so anxious to get here that they drove straight through on Christmas evening and arrived at 1:30 in the morning. My kids were in hog heaven to awaken the next day and find all the family here. Memorable highlights of the rest of the vacation include (but are not limited to) the following:

FIELD TRIPS

• Day 1 with the fam included the first of MANY field trips to Kroger for samples. This is Sophie's favorite activity with "Granny Nanny." She (Sophie that is) is a major Go-Go girl and loves to GO anywhere with my mom, but a Kroger run for samples is her absolute fave.

• After a particularly difficult outing to Kroger with Grace (involving multiple runnings-away, melt-downs over quarters for the trinket-y machines at the front of the store, back talk, and flat-out willful disobedience) I observed without surprise as my family discovered that perhaps Grace's antics are a bit more appealing in print than in person.

• My mom, Scott, Jane, and I enjoyed a little peace and quiet as the kids -- everyone else, that is -- made a quick little road trip up to visit my sister Sarah and her family and to see their new place. When they got back Muffy provided me with perhaps my favorite quote of the whole vacation when she said that she felt like she had a "hangover" after taking care of my children for 48 hours.

• Piggy-backing on the kids' trip up to see them, Sarah, Andrew, and my little niece Eleanor took a field trip of their own down to visit us so that the fun and festivities could continue a little longer.

PUZZLES AND GAMES

• Phase 10 -- you know, the card game -- became an evening staple. Many a round was played and this picture was taken on New Year's Eve while a game was in play. I believe the new year was actually rung in while the game continued, but I don't know for sure because I had to head up to bed around 10 PM due to over-exhaustion from the night-before's-shenanigans (briefly -- the kids were riled up and excited because Eleanor had gotten there around bedtime; Sophie ended up sleeping on the floor of Grace's room; NONE of the kids would fall asleep except for Ethan; the girls apparently didn't succumb to sleep until midnight; and finally I was up all night long with Jane, who decided she wanted to wake up every hour on the hour).

• Along with Phase 10, we managed to squeeze in at least one rousing game of Pictionary, and my kids managed to convince Scott and Dodo to play Twister with them a few times.

• Along with the gaming, Freddie did a little puzzling as well. Unfortunately, he didn't have a whole lot of help, and as a result he ended up having to pack it all up to take back to P-town with him.

• And of course we can't forget the inordinate amount of time that was spent gaming on the Wii this season. As a result, Ethan earned the nickname Wii-than (which he DID NOT like) from Amy, and we ended up watching a WHOLE LOT of Super Mario Brothers (which was made a whole lot more entertaining by hearing Ethan yell at Freddie that he was being "selfish" with the way he was playing. I'm not even sure what that means, but by the way Freddie was laughing whenever he said it, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what was happening...)

PHOTO SHOOTS

Hard at work on Photoshop, editing all the pics.

• Laura -- or Muffy or Muppy (as Sophie pronounces it) or Mufflin (as Grace has newly christened her) -- is a budding photographer. And thanks to whatever BYU department that has allowed her to check out an awesome DSLR camera indefinitely, she so graciously snapped lots and lots of pictures of my little rugrats. To the point where Sophie has now asked on multiple occasions when she gets to do her next photo shoot. A toddler with a tiara in the making, no?

• While playing with Kit Kitteredge on one of the first days after Christmas, Grace decided to pay homage to the doll by dressing up in an outfit that one might deem loosely inspired by her clothes. (Although in Grace's mind they were dressed like twins -- right down to the freckles across their noses). Sophie jumped in on the fun and the result? Fabulosity.

Necklace? Check. Purple(ish) sweater? Check. Flower skirt? Check. Barrette? Check. White sandals? Check. Freckles (courtesy of my eyeliner)? Check. The only thing she couldn't replicate was the hat.

"Sisters, sisters -- there were never such devoted sisters"


"Caring, sharing, every little thing that we are wearing"



"Two different faces, but in tight places, we think and we act as one"

Oh how she loved those freckles!

• I think we've already established that my girls like photo shoots, and my boy does NOT. Of course, it didn't help that it was about 17 degrees outside and Ethan was justifiably freezing -- however, there comes a time (or times) in every mother's life when she makes her kids get dressed up to take pictures for her whether they like it or not. The following are the result of a photo shoot that Laura so graciously captured that I might have current pictures to put on my living room wall. You will notice an overabundance of shots from a certain child, and an underabundance from another. I still haven't decided which ones to choose.

DREAMING BIG IN 2010

• Some of you may remember me raving about The Dream Manager in my Christmas recap post from last year. It's a quick read that packs a powerfully motivating punch to make you realize how important it is to have dreams and to work to make them come true. After raving about the book last year, we decided that as a family (the one I came from, not the one I have created) we need to dream more. As a result, operation Dream Big in 2009 was launched. It was such a success, that I thought that we should continue on into this year and for Christmas I gave each of my brothers and sisters their own "Dream Books" -- a plain, old composition book that I gussied up with a photo from my dream trip to Washington D.C. last year and an inscription to Dream Big in 2010.

• Much to my pleasure, Ethan heard us all talking about our dreams and told me that he wants the composition book that Santa left for him in the desk to be HIS dream book. And in an instance of it's-never-what-you-think-it-will-be, the first item in his dream book is to build his own house. And by build his own house he means build his own house. As in from scratch. Apparently that TLC special we watched a couple of months ago where the Duggar family built their house left an impression. Also in his book? Learning to read chapter books all by himself, playing basketball, taking piano lessons again, and learning how to mop. Yeah, you heard me.

• And in case you're wondering what the girls' dreams are for 2010, there's no need to hold your breath any longer. On Sunday morning while Scott was driving the college kids to the airport, I held an impromptu dream recording session with the kids and discovered that Grace's dreams are to go to the temple, go to church, listen to the prophet, and get a golden retriever. Again -- it's never what you think it's going to be. Well, except for that last one. As for Sophie, I convinced her that she should dream about potty-training this year and maybe learning some ABCs. Dream Big. My number one dream for the year? Finish painting the kitchen!

MISCELLANY

• Alright, now on to the miscellany. These are the rest of the random.

• At the height of our Full House experience -- with 14 people and counting -- Amy turned my mom's mini-van into her "recording studio" to work on "her album" without any noise and distraction.

• Apparently my mom and the kids listened to Michael Jackson's newest CD several times on the way up and as a result his music had a way of infiltrating every aspect of the remainder of their stay. And for those of you who know Amy, you can imagine how entertaining this was with her spot-on impersonations.

• I also managed to get Freddie and Laura hooked on The Hunger Games -- read it, live it, love it (you can check out my review on goodreads). And let me just state for the record that no one can possibly understand how absolutely tickled pink I am to find that my brothers and sisters actually read books for fun now. Words can't even describe my joy.

• Jane has finally found her thumb!!! At least she finds it when she is trying to go to sleep. Perhaps it's because we've finally transitioned her from sleeping in her carseat to sleeping in her actual bassinet. Or perhaps, it's because we have now decided it's time for her to learn how to fall asleep on her own. Whatever, the reason, it warms my heart to no end. Grace was a thumb-sucker as well, and I just think it's so cute.

Random side-note, I bought the pants that Jane is wearing for Sophie when she was almost 11 months old. Jane is barely 4 months old. Bananas.

• We checked out the Hannah Montana movie from Redbox to watch with the kids and I have to say that I actually kind of liked it. The kids especially liked the "pop it, lock it, polka dot it" part.

• On their last day here (after everyone else had left), Freddie, Laura, and Amy put their movie-making skills to good(?) use and created a short film. Click here to enjoy.

Alright this trip is almost over! The last thing to cover is Jane's baby blessing. And sadly enough it feels like a bit of an afterthought. Poor little fourth-born baby! In theory we could have blessed her while everyone was still here, but a multiplicity of factors conspired to prevent that from happening, and in the end we decided that this past Sunday was now or never. As it was, the little bonnet was barely fitting on her head. Grace used this same gown as a 2 month old, and in looking at her pictures I can definitely see the difference. Unfortunately, these are the only shots we got that day. I wanted to get a family picture taken before church, but we barely made it on time to our new 1 o'clock time slot. And there was no way that the gown was going to last through Sacrament Meeting. Oh well, perhaps we can pose for a picture on another Sunday and just pretend. Hahahaha.



Thank you and goodnight. Parkour!