Sunday, 17 March 2002

The very night of my last entry, we put both girls down to bed and two hours later, Alicia was up and crying with a fever of 102.  Was that deja vu or what?  Both girls stayed home from church with Chris and by the time I got home, Alicia was pretty sick.  I thought that Amy was feeling better, but that night was probably the worst one yet for her.  She was in our bed whimpering all night long.  Chris finally went to sleep in her bed again, so I was up most of the night with her as she flopped and tossed and turned.  I didn’t know what was wrong with her so I wasn’t as patient with her as I should have been.

By morning (Monday), I noticed a lot of drainage in her ear and realized that she must have had a monster ear ache in the middle of the night.  If she had an ear infection, then surely Alicia had one as well.  We decided to take them to the doctor, but when we called for an appointment there were none available until Wednesday.  They suggested we take them to urgent care which is the same as the emergency room but at the clinic.  I was pretty frustrated that we couldn’t even get in to see anyone at the clinic, so I immediately started looking for someone else that they could see and we ended up taking them to a pediatrician in Loveland about 20 miles away.  We had to hurry and change our Primary Care Provider with the Insurance Company to be able to make the change, but they let us.

Amy definitely had an ear infection and her ear drum had burst over night.  They reassured us that that was a good thing (obviously it would be better if it hadn’t burst at all) because it was the body’s way of preventing further damage to the ear with so much pressure building up.  It will heal itself.  Alicia wasn’t as bad, but we were given a prescription of Amoxycillin for both of them.  We started both of them on it on Monday, and Amy was much improved by Wednesday.

On Wednesday, my ears were starting to hurt so I went to the doctor.  Another ear infection.  He gave me a prescription to start taking, and I was hoping that I was catching the infection early enough that I wouldn’t have too many problems.  I thought that everything was improving, though Alicia wasn’t getting better as quickly.  On Monday, Alicia woke up with a rash on her face and it proceeded to get worse throughout the day and covered her entire body from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.  Poor thing.  I called the doctor’s office again and they said that they would need to see her.  They weren’t able to fit us in until Tuesday morning and by then, Alicia was one big splotch of red.  The doctor who looked at her, Dr. Tomlinson, said that she is probably allergic to penicillin and that she has had RSV.  I am not too sure what we can do about the allergy now, especially if she gets another ear infection.  He gave her zyrtec for the allergy and both of us stopped taking the penicillin for her sake.  Even today she still has a bit of a rash on her hands and legs but the doctor said it takes awhile for the penicillin to fully work itself out of the body.  I am hoping that that is all that it is.

Today was the first day that we took the girls to church-I think they missed three Sundays all together-but Chris took them home after Sacrament meeting.  I am not anxious to have them get sick again with all of the germs in nursery so we will just keep Amy out of nursery for a couple more weeks.

Chris was in Dallas last week from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday evening.  He had advanced training specific to his job.  I think we all missed each other a lot.  Amy would chant, “Come home, come home, come home daddy” at least once a day.  She thought her daddy went “to the tree” while he was away.  She likes to read “Go Dog Go” and in it the dogs are driving to the tree to a dog party.  Who knows what she thought he was doing at the tree.

Amy is a great helper around the house.  She loves to empty the dishwasher and when I make supper, she has to be right there helping too.  I bring a chair from the table over for her to stand on so she can help stir, add things, or just watch while I get things ready.  She especially likes to taste test-that is, if it looks good.  I was feeding Alicia one afternoon while Amy was finishing her lunch and when I came back into the kitchen the table was completely cleared off.  I began looking for her plate under the table, in the sink and in the living room but couldn’t find it anywhere.  I finally asked her where it was and she ran over to the dishwasher, opened it up, and showed me that she had put her plate in.  Wow!  (The dishes were actually clean, but I left her plate there so that she would feel as though she had done a great thing).

Saturday, 23 February, 2002

Unseasonably warm

Amy is getting better from being sick for most of the week.  It was weird how it came on though, we put her to bed around 8:30 and at 11:30 she was crying and had a fever of 102.  Chris is the one who heard her crying and brought her into our room.  I had the hardest time waking up but could tell that the little body next to me was so hot.  We took off her pajamas to try and cool her off and she finally let Chris place a cold wash cloth on her forehead.  She slept the rest of the night in our bed, but I use the word “slept” loosely as none of really slept well.  Her fever finally broke after an hour or so, but by morning she was a pretty sick little girl.

For the next two nights we would put her in her bed to sleep and a couple of hours later she was crying.  Finally, Chris slept in her bed on Thursday night to try and get a good sleep, and Amy slept in ours.  I was running pretty much on empty, and even after a good night’s sleep last night I am still pretty tired.  Course, it doesn’t help that Alicia was up before six and Amy not too long after that.  As usual, Chris is still sleeping.  He somehow seems to think that he “needs” to sleep in while I don’t because he gets up to go to work everyday.  I don’t think he understands that I get up to work every day–I just don’t get a change of scenery, nor do I get to leave.  Mommy’s work is 24/7.

Alicia’s bottom two front teeth are in.  The first one broke through about Tuesday and I noticed the other one by Friday.

Tuesday, 12 February, 2002

cool and sunny

It has been windy three out of the past four days.  I HATE WIND.  It is one of the big reasons why I never enjoyed living in Southern Alberta.  The wind blows there all. of. the. time.

My girls are growing so quickly.  Amy can count to ten most days though she sometimes gets seven and nine mixed up.  Chris and I usually pray with her at night before she goes to bed.  Up until last week, she would never say the pray on her own.  Then, all of a sudden, I was encouraging her to say “Heavenly Father” and she proceeded to repeat a prayer with my help.  It was so cute and sweet.  She now will say a blessing on the food if we help her.  My big WISH now is for her to be potty trained.  She isn’t cooperating very well though.  When she has a dirty diaper I try to get her to tell me by saying “I need a change”.  Every once in a while she will.  Most of the time, however, I smell her and then change her.  While I am changing her, I reemphasize that she needs to tell me when she has a dirty diaper.  Then she says rather loudly, “I need a change.”  She is getting a little more comfortable sitting on the potty, but isn’t quite there yet.  I am trying not to rush her, but it would be lovely for all of us to have her trained–not to mention a cost-savings with diapers.

Amy was so cute on Sunday.  She loves music and leading the music and our friend, Carli, who leads the music in church really holds her attention.  On Sunday, she stood in the aisle beside us and started to lead the music when Carli did.  It was so precious and the cute “grandma” ladies beside us were thrilled.  Even people behind us mentioned how cute it was to watch.  Amy got so embarrassed after a bit with everyone staring and smiling that she stopped.  She loves music and dancing and often grabs my hand and says, “Dance w me.”  (She doesn’t quite say “with”.)

I felt a bump on Alicia’s bottom gum this morning.  I have been watching her teeth come closer to the surface for a couple of weeks now–I suppose that explains why she is so crabby lately.  She is definitely not her normal self.  She is usually so sweet and happy.  Our friend, Shane, calls her babe-alicious because she is such a good-natured little girl.  Both of my girls have such sweet personalities; Alicia’s has been emerging more and more.

Alicia loves to scoot around the house in her walker.  She can go pretty much anywhere she wants and if the dishwasher is open, or if I am trying to get things out of the oven, she is right there.  I have to leave the pantry doors closed or she scoots in there as well pulling things off the shelves.  She has begun to say “ba-ba” and “da-da” and “ga-ga”.  She gives the sweetest kisses.  When she first wakes up in the morning and I go into her room to get her, she gets so excited to see me.  She smiles, flaps her arms and snuggles her head into my shoulder as I pick her up.  I kiss her cheek and she gives me a couple of kisses right back.

Amy seems to have calmed down a lot from her “terrible two-ness”.  I think she took some time to adjust to all of the changes in her life and that was the only way she knew how to show us that she was frustrated.  She is much sweeter now and usually more obedient.  She can still be rather determined in getting her way and sometimes she simply ignores what I say and does what she wants.

Monday, 29 January, 2002

sunny and cold brrrr

Our sweet girls seem to be growing all of the time and Amy’s language capabilities are improving more and more as well.  She is able to form complete sentences and is adding new words to her vocabulary all of the time.  She is learning colors, numbers and letters and loves to play her “game” on the computer whenever she gets the chance.  She wears 3T and 4T sizes in clothing and still has beautiful curly hair.  It looks pretty crazy after a day of playing and sleeping on it. 

She just got a new battery-powered toothbrush that she loves.  She would keep that thing in her mouth all day long if I let her.  She wasn’t doing too much good with a regular toothbrush-not more than sucking all of the toothpaste off-so this new toothbrush seems to be doing a better job of cleaning.  Chris and I have dental appointments next month, so we will take her also to let her see what happens when you go to the dentist.  She will probably have an appointment at the end of the year, and I want her to feel comfortable being there.

 Alicia is growing more animated and aware every day.  She gives the most wonderful kisses to me, but not so often to Christopher.  I think maybe the whiskers may be a bit of a deterrent.  She is now eating baby cereal, and I just started her on baby food.  Squash was our first selection.  She kind of shuddered over it the first time, but eats it quite well now.  She also likes cheerios but just choked on one that I gave her.

I just received a calling as an assistant Sunbeam teacher in Primary.  I don’t relish the idea at all and last Sunday I felt like a glorified babysitter.  I haven’t been in Primary since I left it at 11 years of age.  But I do appreciate the work Amy’s teachers do with her, and I suppose the opportunity will be good for me.

Wednesday, 2 January, 2002

Cold and sunny

Our freezer arrived earlier today.  Fortunately the delivery guys moved it in for us and hefted it downstairs.  We have already begun to fill it up since orange juice is on sale at Safeway right now and Amy loves her “juice”.  We asked to have the freezer box and it is now up in Amy’s room.  I cut a door and a couple of windows in it for her, and we placed the box up against the wall by her nightlight so that she now has a light in her house.  We’ll see if she actually plays in it, she usually likes to play wherever I am in the house.

Tuesday, 1 January, 2002

20s and a little snow

Chris goes back to work tomorrow after being on vacation since December 21.  I have enjoyed having him around, and I think the girls will miss him when he is back to work.

On the 19th of December, we went to the mall in Longmont to do some shopping.  I think we just wanted to get out and do something and that is where we ended up.  We hadn’t had any dinner so we went to the food court area where they also have a play area for kids.  You don’t have to tell Amy twice that she can go and play; you do have to tell her a lot of times when it is time to leave however.  We were sitting and eating while she played (food is very secondary for her) and, all of a sudden, I couldn’t see her anymore.  I got up and walked into the play area, calling her name, and still couldn’t find her.  I looked under the toys and around and looked at Chris telling him that I couldn’t find Amy.  I started to panic.  I ran down the hall toward the bathrooms while calling her name and still couldn’t find her.  My mind was very much in panic mode thinking that I have to find my little girl quickly because it would only take someone minutes to get her out of the mall.

Chris had been holding Alicia and quickly put her back into her stroller.  I come back to the table and he took off to search leaving me with Alicia.  I wasn’t going to just stand around waiting while someone could be taking my daughter, so I grabbed all of our coats, the diaper bag and Alicia and started searching in another direction.  No luck and I was becoming more frantic by the second.  I came back around by the food court and everyone who had been aware of the situation and saw us looking for our daughter told me that Chris had found her.  What relief.  I don’t think any one could imagine the fear that goes through you if they had never experienced it for themselves.

It took awhile for us to find each other, and I finally just stood in one spot and waited for him to find me.  When I saw my little girl I almost started crying.  She was on her daddy’s shoulders and when she got closer, Chris took her down and she hugged me.  “I sorry mommy”.  Chris had already talked to her about how naughty it was to run off.  She had seen some other toys down the mall that she wanted to play with.  I understand more clearly how my parents must have felt when I was younger and was always getting lost.  I was only three when I got lost at the Calgary Stampede.

Grandpa Kline flew in to visit for Christmas on December 24 around noon.  When they got back to the house from the airport, Chris and his dad watched “Pearl Harbor” and relaxed.  I didn’t watch all of the movie with them since I had seen it earlier this summer.

We all left for dinner in Loveland with Stan and Pam around 4:30 pm.  It is my family’s tradition to have Chinese food on Christmas Eve, and so we planned to meet the Brauns at a restaurant there.  It didn’t really feel like our normal tradition since we usually do take out, but we enjoyed ourselves.  After that we came back to Ken and Carli’s in Longmont for another party.  We were invited to dinner there but decided to do some of our own traditions instead.  We got to the party in time for a program of music and stories and dessert.  Grandpa Kline didn’t really look as though he was enjoying himself, I suppose I probably would have felt the same way, but he did mention what he great bunch of friends we have and how talented they were.

We left a little earlier than others so that we could get the girls home to bed.  It also gave us some time to get all of the Christmas gifts under the tree.  Most of them were in our closet since Amy was prone to opening them.

Christmas morning didn’t really dawn too early at our house.  Both girls slept in past 7:30.  I got up to exercise so I was up early and had a shower before they were even up.  At least now I can sleep through the night.  I remember that Christmas Eve was the worst sleep of the year when I was younger.  The anticipation was just too much to bear.  We woke Grandpa up around 8 and started opening presents around 8:30 am.  We were planning on a brunch with Allred’s and DeBry’s around 9 but they were both late getting here.  That’s okay since we didn’t finish with the presents until about 9:30.  Amy was pretty excited to be able to open the presents and kept saying “more, more”.  She got some great new interactive toys that are more suited to her age and development level.  She got blocks and tools “just like daddy’s” (it warms Christopher’s heart every time she says it), clothes and socks, books and a computer game.  Alicia didn’t get quite as many toys since she will inherit a lot of the toys Amy had but she did receive quite a few new outfits since all of Amy’s old clothes at this age are summertime clothes.

I was excited to give Christopher a GPS (Global Positioning System).  He has been wanting one for a long time, and I was able to find one on the ebay auction.  The seller worked at IBM so I had Chris pick it up one day.  If I had picked it up, he probably wouldn’t have had any idea what I had got for him.  I love a good surprise.  He also got a new white shirt, a dvd and some other things.  His dad gave us money and with that we have bought an upright freezer.  It will arrive tomorrow in the afternoon.  I got a beautiful silver tennis bracelet, a dvd, a frying pan which makes perfect pancakes, a turtleneck and I have ordered some perfume online.  I also got 15 pound weights to add to my weightlifting regimen.  I was hoping for a weight bench, but I think maybe for my birthday. 

We gave Chris’ dad our old dvd player.  It isn’t really old, we just got a new one with the house when we moved in.  We also gave him a calendar that I had designed with our pictures to coincide with each month and all of our birthdays.  We gave it to all of the grandmas and great grandmas and it was truly the hit of the season.  We will continue to do it in the future since it was so appreciated.  We also gave Grandpa Kline his birthday present-a sweatshirt from Kings Point.  It is the merchant marine academy that he attended 30 years ago.  It took some effort to track down the “ship’s store” and purchase the sweatshirt.  It would have been much more impressive if he hadn’t attended his 30 year reunion in October there.  He went to the ship’s store and bought a lot of things for himself then.  He did appreciate the gift though and the time and effort that went in to it.

We had a yummy breakfast here around 10 am on Christmas morning and then planned for a turkey dinner later in the day.  Allreds came back for that but DeBry’s had other plans already.  Alicia learned not only how to sit up but also how to roll over from her tummy to her back.  She is such a sweet little girl and I rarely hold her when we have company over because they all like to hold her so much.  Amy also captivates the attention of our friends, but she rarely sits still for very long for anyone to hold her.  She particularly loves Shane and Rochelle Allred and will hug them anytime she sees them and becomes excited when she knows they are coming to visit.  She often says “Wahooo” about them.

Amy’s vocal abilities continue to improve all of the time.  She says more words than I can count and speaks very clearly for a two year old.  She is showing more and more of the signs that she is becoming ready to be potty trained.  If she has a dirty diaper, she will often tell me.

Grandpa Kline flew back to Phoenix in the evening of the 25th shortly after we finished eating.  Flights were pretty crowded so he was hoping that he wouldn’t get bumped.  The trip was short and sweet and he was touched by all that we had done for him.  He said that it was his best Christmas ever.  I am glad that it went better than the previous visit.  I think that he connected a little better with his granddaughters but they are still a lot for him to handle as far as mess and noise go.

We hit some after-Christmas sales throughout the week--I have enough Christmas paper to last until the girls are teenagers.  You can’t beat the price though.  We also began looking at some new bedroom furniture.  I want to get an armoire, but it will be a little down the road before we actually get something.  We just wanted to get an idea of what we like and what we will need to save.

Chris and I went on a date on Saturday night.  Allreds watched the girls (Alicia just started to take a bottle this week “Yahoo”) and we went out to dinner.  We went to Walmart first actually and then to dinner.  Chris was rather crabby and out of sorts so it wasn’t one of our better dates.  We got back to Allred’s house around 7:30 and stayed to talk with them for a couple of hours.

Monday (yesterday) was New Year’s Eve and everyone came over.  Some watched the BYU bowl game at our house and others came later for dinner.  We just had potluck since I didn’t feel like doing a huge party again.  (We had a Christmas party on the 14th plus all of the Christmas day stuff).  I probably wouldn’t have stayed up til midnight to see the new year, but there were some in our group who just had to stay up for it.  We didn’t get to bed until after one.  I knew the girls would still be getting up at their normal time, so I have been pretty tired today.  Today was nice though, we just laid around watching tv.  I wore my pajamas all day and now I am thinking that I should probably tidy up my kitchen some before I go to bed.  I have been putting off writing in this journal too much lately though; I knew I needed to catch up on the past month.  There is so much happening in my little girl’s lives right now that to miss even a couple of weeks of writing means I miss out on some key events.

Monday, 10 December, 2001

40s and sunny

As I sit here with Alicia on my lap, it is hard to believe that two years ago I was in labor with Amy.  So much has happened and changed in our lives in such a short amount of time.

Tonight we are having our friends over for brownies and ice cream to celebrate her birthday.  Tomorrow is Enrichment night, so most of the wives will be busy.

Wednesday, 5 December, 2001

Amy will be two next Tuesday.  Though there are days when she acts incredibly “two”, she sure is a sweetheart as well.  She will often reply to a request that I make of her, “Sure Mommy”.  There are moments though when she can be rather naughty.  The girls and I were at DeBry’s home for dinner on Sunday (Chris was on pager all last week and got paged just as we were to leave).  Amy wanted to feed herself, but we were eating spaghetti and their dining table is on carpet.  She got mad when I tried to help her and though I grabbed a glass of soda out of her reach as she tried to hit it, I wasn’t fast enough with the soda container.  She spilled the root beer all over Rochelle and the carpet on purpose!  I was so upset with her.  We had been having a rather frustrating week together and this was just the icing on the cake.  I wanted to just leave and bring the girls back home, but everyone was kind enough and wanted us to stay.  Oh, the joy of a two-year old.

When I put on makeup, Amy likes to use my brushes and sponges to make herself look pretty too.  She always wants me to apply eyeliner to her eyes, but has been happy to settle for freckles on her cheeks and nose.  It is pretty cute. 

Wednesday, 28 November, 2001

Unseasonably cold

We sure do love living in our home.  I, however, do not appreciate the mouse that has also taken up residence here.  It doesn’t seem to bother Chris, but then a lot of things don’t bother him that do me.  Amy and Alicia are both growing and changing all of the time.  Amy is two.  Enough said.  Sometimes she is sweet and angelic and wonderful to be around.  Other times she can be so annoying and disobedient.  There are days when having two children is more than enough for me.

Amy loves to wear hats.  Whether it is a big straw hat of mine or a colander from the kitchen, she’ll put it on her head and sleep next to it in her bed.  In fact, she has to sleep next to a lot of things when she goes to sleep.  There is always her “baby”, a doll that Susan gave to her last year for her birthday.  She didn’t really become attached to it until five or six months ago after I took her pacifier away.  Now “baby” goes to bed with her at night and for naps and is in Amy’s arms as she wakes up and comes in to our room in the morning.
 

She also has books next to her in bed.  We ordered “The Friend” for her and she has been attached to it since the first issue came last week.  She sleeps with it, eats with it and plays with it.  It is so cute to see how much she loves to have a magazine of her own.  I realize that it is going to get smunched and loved a lot, but that’s what it is for.  After her books, she sometimes has a teddy bear, sometimes a hat, her pillow, and two blankets that Grandma Rice made.

She is becoming much more vocal and is able to express herself pretty well.  I suppose if I wasn’t around her all day long and knew what to anticipate at times, I would have a harder time understanding her language.  She frequently talks in sentences, but they are usually “I need this...” or “I want this...” and even “I don’t want...”  When she knows that I am making lunch or dinner, she will get into her chair at the table and “I’m ready.”  Most of the time she doesn’t understand that it takes time to cook food, but I try to find something to placate her.

Amy is much more comfortable going to nursery now and looks forward to being there.  She knows that you wear dresses and tights to church and loves to wear her “clip clop” shoes.  They make a tapping noise on the hardware floor and she loves to walk around making noise.

I tried to give Alicia a bottle tonight.  She took it for about 10 seconds and then realized that it wasn’t the real thing.  She got mad at me after that for trying to give it to her.  I, however, would like a little more freedom.  She eats every two hours and that’s every two hours from the time she starts eating.  Since she won’t take a bottle, I can never be far away.

She sits in her little walker and will push herself backward and is pretty mobile in it.  I imagine that she will be walking long before her first birthday.  For the most part, she is a sweet, good-natured baby.  Our friends comment on how content she is and willing to let other people hold her.  That will likely change around six months or so when most babies become very attached to their mothers. 

Alicia goes to sleep around 8 or 8:30 and sleeps until at least 7 am and often longer.  It is so wonderful to be back to sleeping through the night.  It is amazing how much that takes out of you.

Candace had a baby boy two weeks ago on the 15th.  Jonathan Michael Ball was 10 days early and weighed 8 pounds, measured 19.5 inches and is healthy.  I guess he prefers to sleep all day long and stay awake at night, much to his parents’ chagrin, but they really enjoy him.  It is interesting that both Kevin and Becky chose Michael as a middle name for their boys.  Chris says that it isn’t a family name.

We had Thanksgiving here with our friends.  Originally, Dallin and Donna had planned to come and then Shane as well.  Dallin called a couple of weeks ago to say they had problems with their car, didn’t have the money to fix it, and didn’t trust it enough to drive to Colorado in it.  Then the day before he was to come, Shane’s ride fell through.  I was rather bummed that they weren’t coming, but we still had fun with Mark, Malinda, Shane and Rochelle.  We had a turkey dinner with all of the trimmings and then played games afterward.  I guess I spent a lot of time cooking, but it was still enjoyable to be together.

Mark and Malinda moved into their house two weeks ago and Shane and Rochelle will be moving in to their new home in two more weeks.

Chris was authorized to begin working one day a week at home in November and then two days a week in December.  It has been nice having him around during the day.  I was spoiled when he was working at home all of the time in Utah.  It is possible that he will get back to that point.

This is a note from Chris to his wife to say that he really loves her and admires all the things she does each day to keep a house and children clean and fit.  It isn’t easy, and I think I sometimes have it easier at work where I can somewhat control my activities.  Jo is one of the sweetest people I know, and I’m so glad that she chose to share her life with me.

Sunday, 11 November, 2001

 Sunny and unseasonably warm

 We have been in our home for almost a month now and it is wonderful.  We love it.  It didn’t take us long to get things unpacked.  We wanted to get the boxes out of here as soon as possible but have spent more time organizing and moving things to more logical places.  Mostly in the kitchen with dishes and silverware.  The silverware has moved drawers three times, but I think things are finally where they will stay.  We have a lot of projects on our list of things to do and a lot that we have already taken care of.  They are things that allow us to organize better, make things last longer, or add a touch of home. 

We enjoy living in Colorado and especially in our new location.  We can watch the sun rise as we lay in bed in the morning (that is if we open the blinds) and we watch it set in the evening out the kitchen and living room windows.  They are usually spectacular and something that we didn’t often see in Utah.  Some of our view will be taken away as houses continue to be built behind us, but we should still have a pretty good view from the upstairs bedrooms.

Both girls are growing and changing–Alicia more obviously, but I do think that Amy just had a growth spurt.  Amy talks a lot more in sentences but there is still a lot I don’t understand.  Usually if I can understand just one word in the sentence, we can get somewhere.  It must be frustrating for her though to not be understood.  There is a park less than a block away and she loves to play on the swings and slide.  She would prefer to play on the toys at the elementary school next to the park, but we don’t during the day.  Because the weather has been so nice lately, we have been able to go play more than if we were experiencing normal temperatures.  Amy loves to watch “Toy Story” and asks to watch Woody usually once a day.  Before we had the tv’s hooked up to the dish, she would watch it usually twice a day and never get tired of it.  I thought she might enjoy the sequel, but it didn’t hold her attention at all.

She and Alicia both went to the doctor on Friday.  Alicia for her four-month check up and immunizations and Amy for her two-year check up.  Both of them are healthy and growing.  Amy now weighs 30.5 pounds and is 35 ½ inches tall.  She is in the 90th percentile.

Alicia is growing so fast.  She was four months last Friday.  She smiles all of the time and has started to laugh a little bit.  She can talk up a storm and gets rather noisy.  I don’t remember Amy talking nearly so much.  Her eyes are kind of hazel or gray but I imagine they will continue to change.  I think that she will be walking earlier than Amy as well since Alicia likes to stand up and will put pressure on her legs.  She now weighs 15 pounds 13.5 ounces and is 25 ½ inches tall.  She too is in the 90th percentile except for her head size, which is in the 60th percentile.  She has taken to sucking her thumb and fingers lately.  It is pretty cute now, but I know that will change as she gets older.  I think it is easier to wean them from a pacifier than to try and get them to stop thumb-sucking, but her new doctor, Dr. Fan, says that it is pretty normal for them to want to suck.

I finally got a treadmill.  I found one on the internet on ebay just as the auction for it was closing.  No one had bid on it so I decided to wait and contact the seller on my own.  It is a True treadmill and we had looked at similar ones in Utah last year.  I offered the seller a little more than she was asking but included shipping in the amount.  I had already checked and it would cost $200-300 dollars just in shipping alone.  I figured if she wanted to sell badly enough she wouldn’t mind taking care of the shipping.  She accepted my offer and said that her husband was going to drive the treadmill here from Vancouver, Washington.  He came the Sunday just after we moved in and I have been working out since.  It is nice to just walk down to the basement to exercise.  It is a good quality, highly rated machine so I hope that it will work without problems for a long time to come.

Saturday, 13 October, 2001

Overcast and cool

We closed on our house yesterday and we are so excited.  It is so beautiful and we are just sorry we have to wait until Monday and Tuesday to start moving in–that’s when the movers come (IBM also pays for this move since our first move here was only temporary).

Amy is sick today and has been for a couple of days.  I keep praying that she will be the only one that gets it and especially that Alicia doesn’t get sick as well.  She can’t take any medicine yet and suffers so.  Both girls are sleeping right now which gives me a nice break.

Chris has gone with a friend from work to Home Depot to get all of the things we need to get our house ready to move into.  He will be installing the over-the-range microwave and a door in the garage, sealing the cement in the garage, installing ceiling fans and lights in the bedrooms, living room and study, and perhaps putting in some shelves.  He is also stopping at a tree farm to pick up some trees that we purchased last night.  It should be a busy day for him.  I wish that I could be out there helping, but I am needed here.

Amy is beginning to say many more words and phrases.  There are a lot of things that we don’t realize that we say all of the time that she certainly picks up.  Makes you realize how careful you have to be with what you do say.

Alicia continues to grow.  People who haven’t seen her for just a week say how much she has grown in that time.  She is already well into 3 to 6 month sizes, and some of those are already snug.  She is mostly long in the body which means she will continue growing out of sizes long before she reaches them in age.  She is pretty particular and noisy about what she does and doesn’t want.  If she doesn’t want to be laying down, she will let you know it.  The other night I was holding her on my lap and she kept squawking.  Chris was sitting next to us in the rocking chair holding Amy.  I turned Alicia around to face me on my lap and she cranked her head around so that she could see Chris still making noise all the while.  I turned her away from him so that she would look at me and she still turned as far as she could so that she could still see him.  Finally I handed her to Chris so that he was holding both girls on his lap, and Alicia was quiet.  Course, Amy didn’t appreciate having to share him and promptly jumped down.

Amy has had a rough time going to sleep this past week and has cried herself hoarse a couple of nights.  I am hoping that it is because she wasn’t feeling well or maybe she is starting on her two-year molars.  I just hope that it is not becoming a new pattern for her.  She usually is so good about going to sleep; she says “nigh nigh” to us and then rolls over and goes to sleep.  I imagine with the move, we will have a few more nights of crying to deal with.

Chris is doing well at work.  He has some projects that he is working on and hopes they will make the documentation process for all of his team members easier.  He enjoys working with his immediate team members-the blue team-and gets along well with most all of them.  Probably all except for Brian H.  I have never met him but he seems to be quite a piece of work.  I remember Chris telling me about him as this annoying person who was in the orientation with Chris back in May.  He was in a different department back then so I consoled Chris by saying that IBM was a big company and he would probably never see the guy again.  Well, it seems his personality and poor work ethic caused him to be transferred out of a number of departments and finally in to Chris'.  And to top that, they now share office space.  The guy drives Chris crazy and can be rather rude and malicious at times.  I usually hear “Brian” stories a couple of times a week.  Unfortunately for Brian, very few people appreciate his company.  I sometimes feel sorry for him, but he brings it on himself.

It feels as though our lives have been on hold for the past two months.  This apartment is certainly not ideal for us, and I haven’t made a lot of effort to organize or be too concerned about keeping things clean.  You just can’t tell when I do clean.  We don’t have safety locks on the kitchen or bathroom cupboards and Amy likes to play in them, so I don’t even bother making things tidy or organizing canned goods.  She’ll just get in there and rearrange them for me!   I say to myself that once we move I will be more diligent, which I know that I will be, but still that feeling of having your life on hold is not a pleasant one.

Thursday, 3 October, 2001

We close on our new house next Friday, the 12th.  We are so excited and so ready to be out of this apartment.  When I went out to have the windows measured for blinds on Monday, most everything was done.  There is definitely cleaning to do and the kitchen appliances need to be installed, but there’s not much more.  We should have our walk-through early next week.  That’s where we look through the house for any damage, such as nicks in the wall, and they fix it before we move in.  Did I say we are excited to move?

Both girls are growing right now.  I think that Amy grew at least a couple inches over the summer and Alicia is getting bigger all of the time.  She has grown a couple inches in just the last few months.  Alicia becomes more alert everyday and smiles so big all of the time.  She is especially happy to see me in the morning when I get her out of bed–it seems as though she can’t smile big enough to show how happy she is.  She grabs at toys that are hanging on her bouncy chair or car seat and likes to talk to me with the cutest little cooing sounds.

Amy learns new phrases all of the time.  Right now she is pretty good at “I don’t wanna” when she doesn’t want something.  If she is really upset she will get down on the floor on her hands and knees and stick her nose right to the carpet and pout.  But you have to see her pouting to make it worth it to her.  Yesterday as we walked back from getting the mail, she was sad because she didn’t get to play on the slide.  She prostrated herself on the sidewalk in her usual pouting position.  I kept walking, so when I was far enough away, she got up, ran to where I was and got back to pouting.  She continued doing this even as we walked up the stairs.  She will often say “Sorry” but it rarely means that she is sorry for doing something, she is mostly sorry that she won’t be doing something for me, such as picking up her toys.

We went to dinner at Golden Corral last night.  Amy loved it.  If there was something she didn’t like, she didn’t have to eat it and there was so much variety that she got all of her favorites–pizza, macaroni and cheese, and ice cream–to name a few.

I have been exercising at the fitness center here at the Orchards for the last month or so.  I wish that my body was a bit better at responding to exercise.  It’s not very motivating when using the treadmill and lifting weights doesn’t do much.  I found a treadmill on the internet that I am buying and will be delivered the first of November so I will be able to keep up with the exercise.  I just keep hoping that at some point it will make a difference.

Monday, 17 September, 2001

Last Tuesday morning, terrorists attacked the United States of America.  They were able to hijack four commercial airplanes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City, one of them into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and another missed its mark and crashed in Pennsylvania.  All passengers, crews, and hijackers lost their lives as well as thousands of individuals working in and around the buildings.  The story is horrific and dominated the news all week long and again into this week.  I am not going to give a lot of details here because the information will always be available, I just want to say that the terrorists devastated a nation but have succeeded in drawing Americans closer together. 

I am grateful that my girls are not older so that I don’t have to try and explain what has happened and why.  I am certain, however, that there will be more opportunities where I will have to explain such evil to them as they grow older.

Alicia is now getting over her cold.  Her runny nose was gone by Wednesday or Thursday, but she has had a cough that is hanging on.  Unfortunately, it seems as though Amy is getting sick again.  She hasn’t been around anyone who appears to be sick, so I don’t know where she caught this one from.  She is sleeping right now and has been asleep for 2 ½ hours already.  I just hope that whatever she has, she will not pass it along to Alicia again.  I am tired of having sick children.

We went out to Firestone on Friday to look at our new house.  They just finished painting it and all of the cabinets and finish work materials are sitting in the garage waiting to be installed.  We had thought that perhaps we ought to lock into an interest rate on Friday with all of the turmoil that is happening, but both Chris and I felt that we should wait.  It is a good thing, though we don’t wish to benefit through tragedy, but another cut in the interest rate was announced this morning.  We’ll wait and see.  At least I don’t see the rates going up anytime soon which is fortunate for us.  We are hoping to get a rate lower than 7% this time.

We are excited by the thought of being in our new home in about a month.  I guess Amy is getting used to us driving around looking at houses in this area and to having us talk about our house; now when we are driving around she asks, “New house?”  I think she understands in a small way that this apartment is not permanent and that we will be moving again soon.  I hope so.  It should be the last major change for awhile–except for potty training....

Wednesday, 12 September, 2001

Amy has been quite out of sorts lately.  I think that it is her way to deal with all of the changes about her.  She has taken to hitting Alicia knowing, I think, that it will get a strong reaction from me.  I tried putting her in her room for a couple of minutes when she hit Alicia, where she would then cry until I let her out.  Last week, she pushed a small button on the door which locked the door so that when I went to let her out, I couldn’t.  I tried to get Amy to turn the door knob, but she is not usually able to.  Finally I decided to get a screwdriver and taken the door knob off of the door.  Fortunately, what I thought was a screw actually popped the lock.  Thank heaven!  As I brought her out of her room, grateful that I was able to unlock the door but still frustrated that she wasn’t being very kind, I knelt down in front of her so that I could talk to her eye-to-eye.  As I knelt down, she also proceeded to kneel down–because this is what we do when we pray-and folded her arms across her little chest.  I looked at her and said, “Yes, this is definitely a moment to say a prayer.”  I then said, “Heavenly Father, please help Amy to be more obedient and help Mommy to be more patient....”  I couldn’t be upset with her any more and wrapped my arms around her.

Another morning at the dinner table, she was being rather grumpy again.  Chris was sitting beside her and her face was so pouty that I grabbed the camera to take a picture.  I turned the camera on, and as soon as Amy heard the camera warming up, she lost the pouty face, turned toward the camera smiling and said, “Cheese!!!”  What a nut.

Alicia had her two-month well child check up on Monday the 10th.  We went to the Longmont Clinic just down the street and our appointment was with Dr. Benson.  I basically just picked a doctor hoping that he would be as wonderful as Dr. Berry.  No such luck, though he was nice enough.  There was just something missing.  Anyway, Alicia has been sick since Friday and was pretty stuffed up so I had him check her for that too.  There’s not much you can do with a baby this small–just give them Tylenol and hope they feel better.   She now weighs 12 pounds 7 ounces which means she has gained half her body weight since birth.  She is also 23 ½ inches tall.  She has definitely filled out a lot from the skinny little bit of a thing that she was when she was born.

Tuesday, 4 September, 2001

Last Thursday, August 30, Chris met with the builders for a pre-sheetrock meeting on our home.  They want to make sure that all of the electrical outlets, ceiling lights, cable and telephone jacks are in the right place before they put the sheetrock up.  They have given a tentative closing date of October 16th give or take a little.  We are so excited that everything is moving so quickly.

Alicia is growing quickly.  She was so tiny for a few weeks, but is lengthening out quite a lot.  I am sure that she is gaining weight as well, but the length is mostly noticeable.  She has a doctors appointment next Monday the 10th so we will be able to find out her weight and height then.  She is losing hair on the sides of her head and will no doubt have rubbed it all off within a couple of weeks.  It has begun to grow in more on the top but I am sure that it will take longer to be replenished on the sides.  She is beginning to notice toys if I hang them in her line of sight and will try to bat them with her hands.  I sat her in front of the tv and she watched it for at least 20 minutes.  She was getting me up once during the night, usually around 3ish, and then sleeping until 6ish.  They say that once they get to be about 11 pounds, they do begin to sleep longer and she has begun to lengthen out her sleeping time at night.   Amy started to sleep longer at 6 weeks, but she was also bigger.  Alicia now goes to sleep around 9 pm, sleeps until 4 am and then again until 9ish.  She is too much asleep at 10 pm to eat again though I think she would sleep until 5 am which would be nicer for me.  From about 3:00 pm on she is eating every two to two and a half hours, I guess she is trying to store up food for the long night of not eating.

We purchased a twin bed for Amy last Saturday and followed that purchase with sheets and a comforter this previous Saturday to help her feel that her new bed was special just for her.  She has been sleeping in it very well for almost a week now.  We have a railing that fits between the mattress and the box springs so that she won’t fall out of the bed, though I did find her on the floor a couple of nights ago as she tried to crawl out the end of the bed.  She also fell out of bed a couple of weeks ago when we were staying in SLC at the Wyndham hotel on our way to Longmont.  Chris and I were quickly awake and out of bed.  She cried a bit and promptly went back to sleep.  A positive trait that Amy has is that it only seems to take her a couple of days to adjust to new changes.

She has been going to nursery in our new ward, but she doesn’t seem to like it as much as our old ward.  Probably because it is somewhat unfamiliar and partly because the leaders are new and need to work harder at making sure the kids feel comfortable.  Hopefully they will learn.

I have started to exercise again and hope to make it a regular habit.  There is a fitness center with a treadmill and weight machines that I like to use in the morning.  Alicia’s schedule usually allows me to go about 6 am and be back in time to help Chris get out the door for work.  It feels great to be exercising again.  I still have a lot of weight to lose and muscles to tighten up, and I am committed to being leaner again.

It is a pet peeve of mine when people in Utah say you move out into the mission field when you move away from Utah.  (I had never heard that way of thinking until I moved to Utah).  Somehow it seems to elevate Utahns above the need to be missionaries and gives the impression that they think everyone in Utah is LDS, but it is nice to have the opportunity to meet people who are just as good-hearted and trying to live exemplary lives in their own faith.

Chris is doing well at work.  He enjoys the people on his team.  Most of them work from home and Chris hopes that once we get situated in our new house that he will be able to transition back into working from home–at least a couple of days a week.  I would like that too and think it would be especially nice on days when the weather isn’t so great.

Alicia smiles at me all of the time-genuine smiles AT me, and she also makes some cute cooing noises.  She is learning to hold her head up and gaining more strength.  Where Amy would never put any pressure on her legs, Alicia will push against anything that gives a little resistance.  I just hope that she isn’t walking at 9 months.  She is sleeping in her bouncy chair right now in front of the tv.  We have made a much greater effort to keep her a part of the noise even when she is sleeping.  Amy is such a light sleeper and that is our fault.  We tried to be so quiet when she was tiny and now Alicia wakes her up instead of vice versa.

Awhile ago I started saying to Amy “hup, two, three, four.  March march march march” when I wanted her to get moving somewhere.  A couple of days ago, I asked her to come in to her bedroom to get her pajamas on.  I wasn’t paying too much attention when I suddenly here this tiny little voice saying “march march march march” and she was marching her way into the bedroom.  She is so cute.  We bought her some new tennis shoes for the fall and she will stand on one side of the room and wait for me to say, “one two three go” and then go running into the kitchen as fast as she can.  She thinks that it is a pretty fun game to play.

Dallin and Donna closed on their new home last week and moved into it over the weekend.  Yesterday was the Labor Day holiday so they finished up moving yesterday.  They are thrilled to be in their new home and to have a home all to themselves.  They have been living in the basement of Donna’s parents home since January.  I am sure that it has been a blessing to have a place to stay, but it has also been a challenge to be dependent on someone else’s generosity–even if it is family.  I am excited for them and wish that we could have been closer to help.  They purchased a three bedroom townhome–similar to our last house–close to Thanksgiving Point and Lehi.  It will now only be a ten minute drive to work for Dallin instead of at least an hour.  They are planning to come and visit us in November over Thanksgiving, and I am so excited to have them come.  We will have been in our new house at least one month by then.