Busy, busy, busy

You know, I don't even know where to begin. It's been a busy month. I'm on project overload,and my kids have been sick for the last week. So, rather than trying to recap EVERYTHING, I'll let the pictures and their captions do most of the talking.

In the month of September, Ethan ventured into the brave new world of (semi) organized sports. Here are some pictures of soccer practice. As a side-note, Ethan enjoyed the drills far more than playing the game.

Stretching



The team photo

I had to take this picture after seeing what Scott dressed Sophie in one Saturday morning. The funniest part of all was that Scott seriously didn't get why I thought she looked so goofy. "What?" he said, "It matches! They're both blue!" The shot also shows her newest skill of sitting up all by herself.

Sophie, the blue raspberry



Grace wanted to have red, curly hair like Annie once again for church.

Also in September, I hosted a Dessert night as part of an Enrichment activity in my ward for exchanging recipes. I made my great Aunt Lil's chocolate peanut butter fudge. It is so delicious. In an effort to be like my little sis, Emily, here is a picture and the recipe:

Aunt Lil's Fudge

4 cups sugar
12 oz. PET brand evaporated milk
18 oz. jar of peanut butter
7 oz. jar of marshmallow crème
8 oz. Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese
2 sticks of butter
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Combine butter, evaporated milk, and sugar over high heat in a heavy-bottomed pot, stirring constantly, until it begins to boil. Lower the heat to medium and cook until the soft ball stage (its easiest to use a candy thermometer). In a large bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients (except for the vanilla) and microwave for about a minute. Stir a few strokes by hand until slightly mixed together.

2. When the candy mixture reaches the soft ball stage, remove from heat and add the vanilla. Add the bowl’s contents to the pot and beat with a mixer on high until thick and creamy and it begins to lose its gloss. Pour into a buttered pan and let cool. After its completely cool you can cut into squares and get ready to serve. A pizza cutter actually works really well to cut the fudge. Enjoy!




Ethan has taken an interest in quilting. While helping my sister Sarah with HER quilt, he got bit by the bug. Here he is putting his pieces in the order he wanted after picking out his favorite fabric. It made one crazy looking quilt.

The school year is officially in full swing, and while Scott may be busy with school work, I think I may be just as busy with the MBA Spouse Association activities. Between park days, and lunch bunch, and girls' nights out, our calendar is PACKED these days.

I'm also on the enrichment committee in my ward, and we're planning our big meeting for November where we will be doing crafts. Here are a couple of samples of "prototypes" that I'm in charge of making for displaying in relief society.

The idea is to use a tea towel (basically a dish towel) and turn it into a child's apron. To make it into a Christmas gift, I'm putting in some cookie cutters, and a recipe for sugar cookies or maybe play dough or perhaps both. Ethan and Grace were really excited about them.

My order of ward book club books from amazon.com!

If Grace's hair were black in this photo, how emo would she look?

And finally here we have some pictures from our MBASA field trip to Cornbelly's yesterday. We went last year as well, but I think the kids were a better age this year to enjoy all the activities. There were hay rides, and train rides, and a giant slide, along with various other activities.

Check out that crazy look on Grace

And finally, to close with, the top 3 signs that tell you your 4 year old is more on top of things than you are:

1.) He comes down the stairs one morning saying "Hey mom, I'm all out of clean clothes, let's do some laundry."

2.) "Um mom? Weren't you supposed to turn back there?"

3.) As I pick him up from preschool he says "I think I need to get glasses so that I don't run into things anymore."

Have a fabulous weekend!

A Day Late and a Dollar Short -- or at least it feels that way!

The momentous first day of Preschool has come and gone! And boy what a day it has been. Does anyone else ever feel like they are perpetually "a day late and a dollar short?" Isn't it such a descriptive phrase? Lately I've been feeling like all I'm doing is treading water in the ocean of life. And that's on a good day! The following are more tales of my incompetence as a mother.

Exhibit A

Sophie recently cut her 2 bottom teeth, and as a result, she's been a little bit fussier than usual and her sleeping has gone a bit astray as well. Last night she fell asleep readily enough, but about an hour later woke up and just started screaming and crying. After going in once to rewrap her in her blanket and give her a pacifier, and in the process only getting her more worked up because I left after doing so, I realized that I would just need to let her cry it out so she'd get back on track. Well, it took her a lot longer than we thought to finally go back to sleep and when I went to check on her before going to bed myself, this picture is what I found. :( Poor little thing. Talk about breaking a mother's heart! And even more pathetic is that she's already mastered the art of sleeping in her clothes, and she's only 7 months old.

This morning I decided to go and buy a bumper pad for the crib. But unfortunately, even though I am up at the crack of dawn with Sophie every single morning, there are not many stores that are up and running as well. So here is how our morning played out. Ethan's only "homework" for the first day of school was to fill a little photo album they gave us with pictures of things that make him happy. Of course I forgot to send the pictures to Costco to print until it was too late on Saturday afternoon, so they weren't ready to pick up until this morning. After Sophie woke up, we went to Costco (so much for last week's lesson) and grabbed the photos. No runaways this time, so at least thats progress for you. From there we ran to Babies R' Us where we spent way too much time picking out a bumper pad. When we were done there we had to hurry home to eat lunch so we'd be ready to go and bring Ethan to school. Here's where things got complicated. I realized that we had no bread left (which made me so mad at myself because I almost bought more at Costco, but I thought we still had at least 1 loaf left, so I didn't bother). And pretty much nothing else that would pass as lunch.

Exhibit B

I quickly decided that fast food was the easiest option. Then Grace decided to poop in her pants because, well, she's regressed a little in that area since the move back. This was right as I was trying to quickly stuff all the newly developed pictures into Ethan's photo album (which you can see him clutching in the above picture) and Sophie was screaming on the floor because she wanted lunch, too. I cleaned up Grace and yelled at Ethan to go and get Grace clean undies from her drawer because I had to finish putting those pictures in and feed Sophie before we left. Scott called at this point and I told him that we would meet him at Wendy's for lunch. Meanwhile Ethan didn't want to go upstairs and get Grace her underwear because HE wanted to put the pictures in the album. Sophie was still screaming, and when I finally got Grace her underwear she was throwing a fit and wouldn't let me put it on. I lost my temper and started yelling at everyone before finally managing to get everything done (except for feeding the baby) and out the door.

The line at Wendy's was UNBELIEVABLY long, but we finally got our food, I scarfed mine down, hurried and took a couple of pictures and then rushed out to the car to feed Sophie before she died of starvation. Hahaha.

Exhibit C -- Nice healthy lunch, right?


Exhibit D

We finally get to Preschool and the problem is not leaving Ethan there, but getting Grace away. Our window of time was very crucial for dropping Ethan off, because Sophie REALLY needed to go down for her afternoon nap. So, with the baby falling asleep in the Baby Bjorn, I finally managed to pry Grace away (kicking and screaming, nonetheless) and got one more good picture of Ethan before we left:



Luckily Sophie went right back to sleep when we got home, and Grace stayed in her room ALMOST the whole time. So what did I do with all that free time you may ask? Um, I don't even know. Isn't that lame? I checked email and some blogs, but other than that I didn't accomplish anything. I didn't even shower yet for the day. The 2 1/2 hour block was up WAY too soon and we were off and running again to pick up Ethan from school, go to the gym, and lastly cash a check at the bank on the way home. Whew. This was a LONG day. And of course once we got home I realized that 2 crucial elements for our dinner were missing -- BLTs were on the menu, and we still had no bread and we had no tomatoes. Scott came up with an alternative after rummaging through the pantry and finding canned soup while I was feeding the baby yet again because she was FREAKING OUT pretty much the whole drive home.

Exhibit E

I was pretty much done with this day at that point and told the kids that it was bed time as soon as they were done eating, to which Ethan retorted that it was FHE, mom! *sigh* Sometimes I feel like the worst mom in the world, because the LAST thing I wanted to do at this point was make the day last any longer. However, Ethan is not one to let you forget ANYTHING, so we had FHE and this (see above picture) was the "activity." Ethan and Grace have become avid "party planners" and so Exhibit E shows them having a "party" with a bunch of plastic bowls and forks.

And here we are to the end of the day. While I should be in bed I'm blogging about my day. Scott tried to get our Tivo up and running tonight. Its been down in the basement, but since we no longer have a phone line down there, we've had to tape anything we want Tivoed manually, which is a bit of a pain. Here is a picture of Scott, who solved his problem of needing a flashlight and not finding one, by remembering the handy head lamp he got for his birthday from his mom.


And finally I got my hair done on Friday after a 7+ month stretch. I think thats the longest I've ever gone between getting my hair highlighted. I told Emily I'd post a picture of it so here you go:

(I had just waxed my eyebrows, so ignore the redness -- oh, and my super tired eyes.)

There you have it folks. Here's to hoping tomorrow is a calmer day. Oh and before I forget, Happy Birth Day to Miss Juliana!

The Runaway Bunny

Newest life lesson learned:

Never go grocery shopping at Walmart with all 3 kids by myself. Last week after having an ultra-productive morning of not only giving the kids a bath, but cutting their hair also, I decided to get even MORE done and go grocery shopping.

So here's the scene. Usually when we go shopping, I keep Sophie in her carseat and put her in the basket part of the buggy, and I buckle Grace in the seat. Because Grace is my little runaway. However, having the carseat in the buggy severely limits the amount of junk that can be put in, and knowing that this was going to be a BIG grocery shopping trip, I decided to put Sophie in the seat for the first time. Although she can't quite sit up by herself for very long, buckling her up gave her just enough support that she was able to sit in the buggy without any problem. So, we started our shopping with Sophie loaded up and Ethan and Grace trailing by my side.

We were just finishing up with the produce on our list when Grace started darting away from us. Ethan, ever the worrier, started freaking out and asked if he could go get her. Knowing how they are, I thought that having Ethan run after her and drag her back (kicking and screaming, most likely) would create an unnecessary scene. Especially because she usually comes back easier when she doesn't think we're making a big deal. I've learned rather quickly that if you chase after her she just runs faster (laughing all the way) thinking she's a riot. So, I told Ethan to stay by Sophie in the buggy and I'd go get her. Well, I started after her and she kept running and then she darted left down an aisle. By the time I ran to that aisle, I didn't see her anywhere. I start running up and down looking in all the aisles and I couldn't see her anywhere. I ran back to Ethan and Sophie because a 4 year old isn't really capable of watching a baby for very long, while trying to find a Walmart employee to have them shut down the store so I can find her.

Of course I don't see any employees, but as I reach Ethan and Sophie I see a mom with a couple of kids of her own and frantically ask her if she'll stay with them because I've lost my little girl. Once I reached the Customer Service desk, the guy took FOREVER in getting her description and getting over to the intercom to make the announcement. I started to run back to get Ethan and Sophie to go wait by the entrance when who comes running in front of me? Why its Grace of course, looking all excited and telling me that she saw a High School Musical poster. What the bunnysauce? I think she lapped around the whole store. Well, I grabbed her -- right as the guy was making the announcement for a Code Adam -- and told her to NEVER run away again and that she scared me to death. I think it actually sank in to her because she buried her head on my shoulder and wouldn't look at anyone for a good little while. We had them cancel the Code Adam, and then went on our way to do our shopping. Fun times.

In other news, Ethan got it into his head last week that he wanted to hike the Y for some reason. Since this was our last free weekend before going back to the grind, we decided to go early yesterday morning before it got too hot. A lot of people had the same idea. We made it about 5 minutes up trail when Grace announced she had to go potty. I took her back down while poor Scott continued up the trail leading Ethan and carrying Sophie in the Baby Bjorn. After using the bathroom, Grace was more interested in playing with the rocks at the base of the trail than climbing back up. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long because Ethan didn't make it all the way to the top. Oh well. Maybe next time.

And finally, Ethan is starting preschool next week! I am so excited. And even more importantly, so is he. This is a big step for him because he is so resistant to change and he's very cautious and reserved by nature. We get to go to "Meet the Teacher" tomorrow and I know he can't wait. I took him school clothes shopping last night (along with Grace) and we got a lot of really cute clothes. It turns out that Ethan is just as fun to go shopping with as Grace! The kids decided that they wanted to put on a fashion show for Scott for the FHE activity. The funniest thing of the evening , however, was Ethan's stage whisper to me at the dinner table that "we can't tell dad how much we spent at the mall." Classic Ethan. He's not very good at withholding information.

Alright, I'm sorry there's so much text this time. I'll try and have more pictures in the next post!

What Time is It?

So, we've only been home for a week now, but already Cincinnati seems like a lifetime ago! In an effort to remember the place, I'll recount the highlights of our last days there.

Ethan and Grace "helping" to pack

The number one life lesson I learned this summer is to ask for help when I need it. With three children ages 4 and under, I quickly realized that there was no way I'd be able to pack, clean, and move us all on my own while Scott was finishing up his internship. I recruited help from some friends in our ward for a couple of days during our last week. It is amazing how much easier it is to get stuff done when you have no kids underfoot!

seven of the THIRTEEN boxes of junk that we accumulated over the summer and shipped back home to save space in our suitcases. Yikes!

Life lesson number 2 learned -- there is indeed a time and a season for everything in life, and this is neither the time nor the season for me to have a spotlessly clean house. However, I was excited to discover that for those few hours when I was able to clean without interruption and without immediate destruction from my young kids, I actually really enjoyed myself! This is huge. Perhaps the time and season will come one day...

In the midst of all the moving preparations, Scott celebrated his 30th birthday! It was on the second to last day of his internship, and despite the craziness of the timing, I really wanted to make sure that such a milestone birthday was celebrated correctly. The kids were only too happy to participate. For the theme, I turned to our resident party girl Grace, who decided that he wanted a Harry Potter party. Alright. Well, luckily our local grocery store still had plenty paraphernalia leftover from the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix premiere and we scored some paper products which worked perfectly. Whoa, that was a lot of P's. Because Scott doesn't like cake very much and because everything was pretty much packed up anyway, we opted for ice cream instead. And not just any ice cream, but the crack cocaine of ice cream -- Graeter's Black Raspberry Chip. Seriously. It is the crack cocaine of ice cream.




Moving day finally came and all I have to say is that we left that place looking GOOD. We do not exactly have the best track record when it comes to getting back our deposits, but if we don't get ours back this time, I will be TICKED. We dropped off our keys and had plenty of time to spare before our flight, so we headed over to the Children's Museum for one last hurrah before we left. That was fun. Not so fun? Getting to the airport and finding out that our flight was delayed an hour. Awesome. The kids were surprisingly well behaved with all the down time there, but once on the plane, Tropical Storm Grace began to brew. Talk about a mess. She was going on about day 4 without a nap, and the flight took off right at her usual bedtime. I optimistically (read foolishly) thought she would be so tired that she'd conk right out and sleep for the majority of the flight. Not the case. Even being buckled in her car seat couldn't stop her from annoying everyone around. From repeatedly kicking the seat in front of her, to messing with the window shade, to intermittently screaming just for kicks, it was the longest 3 hours and 17 minutes of my life. Ethan and Sophie were both super champs, though, so it could have been much worse.

Scott unleashing his inner child at the Children's Museum

All our luggage

Going through security with all our junk and 3 little kids was a pain in the butt


Here's Grace entertaining herself in the airport


Sarah and Andrew made us a welcome home sign

Grace finally did conk out -- driving home from the airport

Coming back home was so weird. It didn't even seem real for the first few days. Of course, having everyone come in town for Sarah's wedding helped to speed reality along. The kids had so much fun playing with all the family. We were so sad to see everyone go yesterday.

The lovebirds

Having fun at the wedding





Hansen sibs

At the reception:

After Grace made a MESS with her piece of chocolate cake, she kept asking me for the Tide pen. When I finally understood what she was saying, I obliged and got one out for both her and Ethan and they both got to work cleaning the chocolate stains on the tablecloth.

We love the Gruwells!

I feel like there's a curious lack of stories here. Of course, last time I wrote that I jinxed myself, so hopefully there will be no new haircutting horrors this week!

In closing, all I have to say is: "What team?!"