Thursday, 18 July, 2002

Chris’ family–Larry, Linda, Jenni, Becky and her baby Andrew–arrived late on Monday evening.  Amy had to give up her bed and room and has been sleeping on a mattress in our closet while they have been here.  She thought it was great fun the first night, but I think it is losing its appeal.  They are leaving tomorrow though so she can go back to her own bed soon.

On Tuesday, they just hung around here for most of the day until about 4.  They drove to Chris’ work and the girls and I joined them later, both of the girls had late naps.  We then went to Boulder and walked up Pearl Street.  It has a lot of interesting shops to visit and a variety of interesting people to watch.  They had a fountain for kids to play in that shot water up into the air.  We peeled them down to their diapers and let them play.  After Pearl Street, we went to the Olive Garden for dinner.  We wanted to treat Jenni and Becky since they had both had birthdays, and Chris ended up paying for everyone. 

Wednesday we spent the day up in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.  They have a lot of fun shops to explore, and we spent much of the morning looking.  We got a quick lunch at McDonald’s and took it to a park to eat.  The girls and Andrew had fun playing on the toys and expended some energy.  Amy and Alicia were asleep within minutes after we left to drive up into the national park.  We spent a couple of hours driving to one of the highest peaks, but noticed as we were coming down a lot of smoke in the sky.  A forest fire had started not too far from where we were.

On the way home, we stopped at Walmart in Loveland while Chris’ family headed on home.  Becky and Jenni weren’t particularly happy with our choice of activities for the day. 

Wednesday, 10 July, 2002

Alicia is one year old.  I think Amy was more excited about her birthday than anything.  She has been talking for awhile about Alicia’s “bickey” and that she will be one year old.  I told her that Chris would be picking up balloons for a party and Amy said, “I LOVE DADDY!!”  She was so thrilled.  About a month ago, I bought “Barney” party hats because Amy wanted them.  She must have had a birthday party in nursery or seen it on tv.  Yesterday she kept asking me to sing the “Happy Birthday” song so that she could drum along with pencils over and over.  That didn’t last too long. 

We tried to put a party hat on Alicia but she just cried.  I put the birthday cake by her mouth and she took a bite, though I wouldn’t let her grab it with her fingers.  Amy, ever concerned about being clean, took a dainty little bite off the cake.  Alicia got a shape sorter toy and nesting barrels.  Amy was so disappointed not to have presents of her own, that I let her open one of Alicia’s.  The toys were a hit with both of them.  It was just the four of us for the party, but we had a lot of fun.

Amy has been getting in my lingerie drawer lately and today put on one of my bras.  She puts it on backwards so that she can have the clasp in the front to do up.  She keeps saying that she will get a bra when she gets bigger.

I was exercising this morning in the basement and kept catching glimpses of movement out the corner of my eye.  I looked at the window and saw a frog hopping around in the window well trying to find a way out.  A couple minutes later I looked over again, and there was a baby frog also jumping.  I took Amy down later to see it and the big frog was just under the window and jumped up against it.  Scared her.  She was pretty fascinated to see it.  The smaller frog had disappeared though so Chris was only able to free one of them when he came down.

Amy has designated the guest bedroom as the Grandma room.  She only says pawpaw for either Grandma or Grandpa, but they don’t seem to care.  Chris’ parents and Jenni and Becky and her baby, Andrew, are coming next Monday to stay for a couple of days, so she will have even more grandparents to enjoy.

Amy’s favorite movie is “The Princess Diaries”.  We got it from the library a couple of weeks ago and she watched it over and over and over.  I renewed it the following week and just this week checked it out again.  She wants to be a princess when she gets bigger.

Wednesday, 3 July, 2002

It is amazing to think that Alicia is almost 1 year old.  The past year zoomed by so fast and she has grown and progressed in so many ways.  Alicia has not really taken off with walking, though in the past couple of days she has become more and more brave.  She will take off toward something and usually she would only walk if Chris or I encouraged her to come to us.   In fact today, she is trying to run.

Last week, Grandma and Grandpa Rice and Mitch came to visit.  They were here from Tuesday evening until Saturday morning.  Because they were here, Chris and I were able to attend the Nauvoo temple dedication at our stake center.  They watched the girls while we attended the first session and then met us at the church so that they could be in the second session.  We haven’t done much on our own since we have lived here so it was nice to have that time together.  It worked great.  It would be nice to have family closer.  As we were sitting in the stake center chapel in Longmont, I had the very distinct impression that people-spirits-were in attendance because of work that I had done for them in the temple.  I felt a very warm “thank you” fill my heart and for a moment a glimpse of people dressed in white congregating in heaven, anticipating the dedication of this beloved temple.

On Friday night, Chris and I were able to go to the temple down in Littleton.  It was a wonderful, spiritually fulfilling week for me.  I wish I had them more often.  We were going to go to a movie after, but we weren’t out soon enough to catch any of the times and we still needed to eat.  Mom kept telling Amy that I would come back and Amy kept saying to me the next day “You came back.”  Alicia was a bit clingy the next morning, but it was so nice to be in the temple.  I sure do wish that it was closer.

From our house, Mom and Dad and Mitch headed to Utah.  Mitch had to be in Idaho on Monday morning for summer term at BYU-Idaho (formerly known as Ricks College), and I think they wanted to have a chance to rest up after all the traveling.  Unfortunately, on Tuesday morning (yesterday), Dallin called and said that he had taken Dad to the hospital because he had been having chest pains.  He was back at Susan’s by the end of the day and after a myriad of tests.  His heart seems to be fine, but perhaps he has some kind of hernia.  I know he was just relieved that everything turned out okay.  I am grateful that it happened in Utah and not here.  I don’t know any doctors here whereas Carson’s stake president is a doctor and Dallin’s brother-in-law is a physician’s assistant, so Dad was in good hands the entire day.  It was pretty hard on Mom, I guess she didn’t handle it too well.

They will be in Utah until this next weekend.  Mitch is driving back up to Utah for the 4th of July holiday and will drive back with Mom and Dad unless he can find a ride back.

Alicia seems to be saying the jumbled form of words, such as “What is it” but it comes out all in one.  She can say “go”, “don’t”, “mommy”, daddy”, and “up”.  We started her on whole milk today–no more formula to buy and she usually eats whatever we are eating.  That is, if she doesn’t put it on her head.  For some reason she likes to put food in her hair.  Makes quite a mess, but she is learning.

Alicia’s fourth tooth came through about two weeks ago.  It was a hard one for her and she was crabby for weeks.  Four down and about sixteen to go in the next year.

Amy is maturing so much.  She carries on quite a conversation.  Actually, she jabbers on and on and on, but it is nice to talk to someone during the day who can answer back.  She was sick last week while Grandma and Grandpa Rice were here, fortunately no one else got sick.

Amy still has no desire to be potty trained.  She gets pretty angry with the whole thing and it seems to do more harm than good to try and encourage her to use the potty.  I let her wear panties a couple of times, but both times she peed in them and all over the floor and the couch.  I was hoping that she would catch onto the sensation of feeling pee coming, but she is just not ready yet.  I hope that she will be someday.  I still have some Sunbeams who aren’t yet, so I guess I shouldn’t worry too much.

 We drove to Loveland with Mark and Malinda DeBry last night to watch fireworks.  As usual, our kids were all over the place.  Amy spilled root beer and Alicia was constipated.  So much fun.  A bunch of trees were blocking our view, but it was nice to get out.  We will know better for next year where to sit.

Monday, 10 June, 2002

Chris set up the sprinkler for Amy on Saturday so she could run through it.  She loved putting on her swimming suit to play in the water, but she was definitely surprised that the water was soooooooo cold.  She finally went through if Chris went with her so he peeled off his shirt and played in the water with her.  While she was waiting to play, she was standing on the sidewalk and Chris noticed a little puddle by her feet.  He pointed out that she just went pee.  Amy immediately cried with delight, “I get a treat.”  We laughed and then explained that she only got treats when she actually peed in the potty.

Tuesday, 4 June, 2002

Mitch made it home late Friday night, May 31st, from his mission in Finland.  I didn’t get a chance to talk to him though until Sunday afternoon because they (Mom, Dad, Dallin, Angie, and Mitch) took off to Calgary for a day of shopping.  Poor Mitch.  When Dallin is around, no one sits still for long.  He and Angie drove up together on Friday and left Monday mid-morning.  I didn’t know that they wouldn’t be home on Saturday so I called all day long trying to get a hold of them.  I finally called Brad to see if he knew where they were.  He was lucky enough to catch them just before they left on Saturday.  I called then too, and it was busy so they must have been talking to him.  Anyway, though tired, Mitch is doing well and looking forward to being at Ricks, or BYU-Idaho as it is now called, for the summer term.

Alicia has had so many milestones within the past week.  She is taking steps on her own, though she usually only likes to walk to me.  If Chris holds out his hands to her, she will take a couple of steps and then try and turn around to come back to me.  She is pretty proud of herself and loves it when I take the time for her to walk to me.  She has started letting go of chairs and such to walk to me, but if the distance seems to far, she will sit down and crawl.  I guess she knows what her limits are. 

For a couple weeks, all Alicia would do was climb the first step on the stairs but yesterday, she just took off and climbed to the landing.  All of a sudden she figured it out.  Can’t leave her for very long in one spot.

I was praying last Wednesday about what more I could do to lose weight.  Right now, I walk on the treadmill for one hour five days a week (that is broken up into two ½ hour shifts–one in the morning at 6 am and then later around 11 am after Amy goes down for her nap) and try to fit in 15-20 minutes of strength training when my girls allow it.  Alicia has been waking up at 6:00 am for the last couple of weeks.  I get her up and put her in the playpen beside me, but 30 minutes is about her limit in there.  The impression I received as I was praying was “stop nursing”.  I was trying to hold out for another month, since that was my own imposed time schedule, I struggled with the feeling of letting Alicia down.  She doesn’t seem to see it that way.  She is happier, I think, without the bother of nursing.  After cutting back to only night and morning feedings in April, I wasn’t producing as much milk, and it would usually take one to two minutes before my milk came in.  She was getting pretty frustrated and it was more of an endurance test to see if she would have enough patience to wait.  It certainly has not been as painful or as difficult as with Amy.  I stopped nursing Amy one night after my milk had already come in because she wouldn’t stop biting me.  I kept getting more and more full as the week progressed and subsequently, in more and more pain.  It feels wonderful to have my body to myself again.

Alicia has figured out how to drink from a sippy cup as well as a straw, so transitioning from bottle to cup shouldn’t be difficult at all.  Though she only associates the sippy cup with water right now and doesn’t like to have juice or milk from one.  She is also eating more of our food and seems to enjoy feeding herself.

Amy surprises us with her funny sayings all of the time.   You know she has been watching too many commercials when she yells out, “Call now” when there is a commercial selling something or a lawyer commercial.

Chris has been trying to explain to Amy that when people in church bear their testimonies and start to cry that they aren’t really sad.  He calls it “happy sad” so that she kind of understands.  Yesterday she was telling me that daddy was really happy sad when he found out that she had colored on the wall in her bedroom.  I told her that I doubted that there was any happiness involved at all.

Amy was coloring in the office yesterday and said that she was going to draw a picture of daddy.  “He’s big tall.  Whew. Daddy’s big tall.”

We had Family Home Evening last night to teach Amy about fire safety and calling 9-1-1.  We showed her about fires and how mommy and daddy are the only ones who light candles.  Chris showed her the fire extinguisher and explained that it sprayed water on big fires.  We had a fire drill and practiced running out of the house when it went off.  After that, we pretended that mommy was hurt and taught her how to reach the telephone.  We need to work on dialing 9-1-1 some more, but I think she caught on to the idea.  She was intrigued by the idea of learning, and you could tell that she was soaking up the information.  This morning she has already talked about running outside and pointed out the fire extinguisher.

Sunday, 26 May, 2002

Amy’s language skills are improving by leaps and bounds, though some of her words get a bit mixed up at times.  She will often call hot dogs “dot hogs”.  She doesn’t like them much and seems to throw up when she does eat them.  We don’t encourage her to eat them anymore.  About a month ago we were driving to church and Amy all of a sudden said, “I’m sooo happy” (The extra o’s on so are indicate a lot of inflection).  About 30 seconds later she said, “I love church!”  She makes us laugh.  We are often amazed by her intellect and memory.  We were driving to church and drove past a Little Caesars Pizza.  She recognized it and said, “pizza”.  Just last week she has started praising my meals and other yummy food by saying “delicious” or “ulicious” as it often comes out sounding.  Speaking of food, she was sitting at the table eating some chips with her lunch and had bit her chip into a shape that looked like a horse.  She was making horse noises with it and prancing it around her plate.

Chris’ grandmother, Grandma Andrews, came to visit last week.  It was the first time she had seen either of the girls.  She was completely taken with Amy, but that’s because Amy latched on to her right away.  I think she loves the idea of having grandmas.  Alicia isn’t too interested in people right now so it didn’t make such an impression on her.  Amy would stand on the toilet in the guest bathroom as grandma got ready in the morning and then come downstairs doused in perfume and beautified with makeup on her face.

Grandma Andrews loved the girls and helped me a couple of times by feeding Alicia and praising the girls at how wonderful they are.  Of course, she’s right.  Grandpa Kline arrived on Saturday afternoon and stayed until Sunday morning.  As usual, his visits are short and sweet.  Who knows if the girls will get to see their great grandmother again, so it was wonderful that they had the chance and vice versa.

Alicia is learning many new things as well.  She has caught onto the idea of drinking out of a sippy cup.  She takes water all the time but doesn’t care for juice at all nor drinking her formula out of the sippy cup.  She’s been rather picky lately about food, but does better with texture.  She likes string cheese, crackers, cheerios and pears.

The other night I was laying on the floor playing with Alicia.  Amy was already in bed and since Alicia had slept late, she was enjoying her one on one time with her parents.  She would stand next to me and stand up on her own, balance for a few seconds and then flop onto my stomach.  She had great fun.  She has started saying “mamama”, but I don’t know if she associates it with me yet.  She graduated from the army crawl into a regular crawl and gets around to many places.

Amy and Alicia will sometimes play together, but usually it is a test of wills and who can yell louder when the other has something they want.  And if Alicia gets anywhere near Amy’s doll, she yells in a very panicky voice, “My baby! My baby!”  That is definitely hers, and I don’t insist that she share it.  That is the one thing that is hers alone.

A couple weeks ago, Chris arrived home from work and I had a picnic supper packed.  Nothing special, I just heated hot dogs in the microwave and then put all the fixings in a box and we were off.  We drove into a park in Longmont and ate supper and then, much to Amy’s delight, went to play on the playground toys.  Chris took her around to watch all of the different sports the people were playing–basketball, tennis, soccer, baseball, hockey–she loved it.  Course, she just loves being out and about.  We went to Dairy Queen after to share a ice cream blizzard and that is where we first heard her infamous “ulicious”.

We were supposed to be heading to Canada this weekend but my green card expired and my new one has not yet arrived.  I keep praying that it will find me here in Colorado.  We had a family fast last month, but nothing yet.  I am guessing that they messed up and sent it to my last address in Provo instead of to Susan’s as I had requested.  I knew that we would be moving a lot.  Anyway, Mitch comes home from his mission on Friday and we won’t be able to be there.  I am sad to miss it though not sad about missing the long, long drive home.

Wednesday, 8 May, 2002

Alicia is becoming more and more brave all of the time.  She is beginning to stand on her own and yesterday even tried to take a step towards me.  It won’t be long before she is walking.  I have been trying to teach her “nose” and the other day when I asked her to point to her nose, she pointed right to mine.

Thursday, 25 April, 2002

Alicia has been crabby since the beginning of April.  I can see that her two front teeth are ready to break through soon, but it is not soon enough.  She has taken to whining, just to be whining.  Then Amy joins in...because she can.  Alicia has been up on all fours this past month and learned how to sit up from the crawling position on April 9th.  Since then she has learned how to crawl, though still prefers the army crawl method of getting around.  She likes to sit on her legs and play, she can pull herself up onto furniture and is now trying to conquer the stairs.  She has only made it to the first stair, but the rest are sure to come.  Yesterday she let go of the couch for a second and acted as though she wanted to walk toward me.  It will only be a matter of time before she is cruising around.

Alicia has weaned herself off of pacifiers.  She just decided one day that she didn’t like them, and I decided to take advantage of the situation and not push them onto her anymore.  Since we have been back from Utah, she has only taken a pacifier once.  She sucked on it for 10 seconds and then pushed it out of her mouth.  Before coming back from Utah, I was nursing her about five to sick times a day.  I have cut way back on that and now only nurse her in the morning and at night.  She doesn’t seem to mind, and I can picture her weaning herself when she feels like it too.  I am ready, though, I have been either pregnant or nursing for the past three years!

Alicia has mastered saying “da da” and has now begun on “ba ba” as well as these letters: t, p, s, o, and k.  When you ask her to clap her hands, she will.  I have been signing the rhyme, “No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” with Amy and Alicia has picked up the finger wagging when the doctor says, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed!”  I am amazed at the things she is learning so quickly.

When we were staying at Kevin’s house, Amy found the crayons and was coloring.  She picked up the white crayon and tried using it on white paper.  When she couldn’t see that it was working, she said to me, “It’s broken.”  And yesterday, was a breakthrough day.  She used the potty for the first time.  I think I was more excited than she, but she got a chocolate Easter egg out of it, so she was pretty pleased too.  She has been sitting on her little potty recently, with no results.  I was just happy that she would agree to use it.

On Monday, we went to story time at the library.  Amy had never been before (for that matter, neither had I) and was somewhat tentative around all of the kids but enjoyed herself immensely.  She got to hear stories about bugs and a “baby” bug (her word for lady bug) and draw on the sidewalk with chalk.  I picked out some books for her and she has loved having daddy read them to her at night since.

We went swimming at the Rec Center in Frederick on Tuesday evening.  Amy’s swimming skills have improved dramatically too.  She got into the pool at the deep end with Chris and with the help of a floatation device paddled her way to the other end of the pool.  Alicia had a great time splashing in the water and both girls went to sleep without too much encouragement.  (Granted they usually are pretty good about going to sleep at night though Alicia has cried herself to sleep a few times while getting used to doing it without a pacifier).

Wednesday, 17 April, 2002

We bought a new minivan Friday (April 5) before we left for Utah.  We had started looking in earnest for a car once we knew that our Accord would be purchased by Shane, and he would need it for the summer.  It is always amazing to me how when the timing is right, when we have done our homework, when we have decided what we want, that things will quickly fall into place.  We had been looking at minivans for a couple of weeks prior to the 5th just to make sure this was what we wanted.  Because they are such a popular car, there are not many around for purchase.  We went to the Frontier Honda dealership in Longmont and drove a new 2002 and a few older ones that they had just received on the lot.  On Monday, April 1st, I was looking online in the Denver papers and found a 2001 Honda Odyssey for a great price.  It was way down in Castle Rock which is over one hour away, but Chris and I both felt like we should look at it.  We had originally planned to go check it out on April 4 because the owner had told me that her husband was out of town and I had incorrectly assumed that he had the vehicle with him.   When I talked to the owner, Betsy Goodwin, on Tuesday the 2nd and she said that the van was at her house now, Chris and I decided to go right then.  This was right after we had looked at a 99 at the Honda dealership in Longmont.  It, too, was a great car, but I just didn’t have the right feeling about it.

We drove to Castle Rock, arriving around 7:15 to test drive the van.  I learned that the Goodwin’s were LDS from talking to Betsy, who was teaching at Enrichment Night when we arrived.  Her son, Mike, showed us the car and gave us keys to take a test drive.  Chris and I both loved the van, and when Amy sat in it, she kept saying, “Amy’s car. Amy’s car.”  As we were test driving the van, I had the strong feeling that this was to be our van.  I was concerned about how we would take care of the financing and paying off a loan but got the distinct feeling that “the money will take care of itself”.  We drove to a secluded parking lot and said a prayer and both felt good about making an offer.  Since it was late, and we had at least an hour’s drive home, we left a message with the son that we were interested in buying the car and would call his mom when we got home. 

We weren’t home five minutes when Betsy called.  Chris made an offer of $23,000 (they were asking $23,900).  She needed to talk to her husband and called us back about 20 minutes later with a counter offer of $23,450.  They figured since it had only been in the paper one day, they didn’t want to go quite so low.  We accepted.  The husband, Kelley Goodwin, is a service rep for Honda and has taken great care of the car.  It has rather high miles for it’s age because he drives to dealerships in Colorado and Utah, but it is in great condition.  It is under warranty for a short time still so we weren’t too concerned about having a diagnostic check done on it.

We made arrangements to pick up the car on Friday, but because of the distance to Castle Rock and rush hour traffic we weren’t able to get back to Weld County to register the vehicle.  We got a $2 temporary tag in Castle Rock that is good for two months.  Chris spent much of Friday evening cleaning and detailing both Hondas, and Saturday morning we were on way to Utah in our van.  That is, I was in the van with the girls.  Chris drove the Accord out as a surprise for Shane.  Chris set up his lap top for Amy to watch DVDs on the way and she sat mesmerized for most of the trip.

Brad was the only one who knew we were coming out early in our family.  We decided to leave Friday so that Chris’ Mom could see the girls for about an hour before she had to leave to go back home.  She had been in Utah for the previous week with her exchange student, Caroline from Belgium.  Brad, Dad, Dallin, and Shane had tickets for attending the Priesthood session in the Conference Center, and we missed seeing them by about five minutes.  Mom was still at Brad’s though and was fairly surprised to see us.  Even more surprise to see our new van and the Accord sitting right next to it.

Grandma Ball stopped at Brad’s to visit about 15 minutes after we arrived.  Amy was excited to see her two grandmas especially since they both had presents for her and Alicia.  The visit for Grandma Ball was short, but she was thrilled that we made the effort for her to see the girls, even if it was just for a short time.

Aunt Donna brought Angela and Wade to Brad’s to visit, thinking she would spend time with “Grandma Canada” (as Angie calls her) and was surprised when I opened the door.  Her kids had been sleeping in the car, but it didn’t take them long to wake up and enjoy their cousins.  Angie and Amy had a great time playing together.  They left around eight before the guys got back from Priesthood sessions so that Donna could get things ready at her house for Mom and Dad to come and stay–they hadn’t planned on staying there until Sunday night.  I put Alicia down for the night, but Amy was still up (Daylight Saving Time took effect that night).  We were watching out the window when the guys drove up and they couldn’t tell that it was us and thought I was Donna.  Dad got right up to the window and took a moment for him to even realize that it was me.

We showed them our exciting new purchase and when Shane came out to look he also saw the Accord.  He was pretty thrilled that we had brought it with us.  He wasn’t able to take it back to Rexburg though because our insurance on it expired on Sunday and he didn’t have any registration information.  He was pretty disappointed not to be able to take it with him, but excited that he could come back the next week and pick it up.

The girls had a pretty rough night sleeping.  Amy woke up around 1:30 am crying.  When I tried to find out what was wrong, she wouldn’t tell me.  I tried laying down with her but nothing.  We were all in the same room–Amy on the floor and Alicia in a play pen.  Finally she woke up Alicia who started to cry quite loudly.  I fed Alicia, but she wouldn’t go back to sleep.  Chris got tired of being kept up by crying babies and finally took Alicia for a drive in the car.  Amy fell asleep after a bit and Alicia too was asleep when Chris brought her home.  What a night!

 On Sunday, everybody but Susan and her family came to Brad’s for dinner, including Grandma Great, Gayle and Maureen.  I called Susan to let her know that we had come early and she was kind of disappointed that she hadn’t known we were coming or they would have maybe changed their Sunday afternoon plans.  Before we had dinner though, Chris and I drove to Thanksgiving Point to pick up Grandpa Kline who had stayed at Kevin’s overnight.  We drove him to the airport to drop him off; he was anxious to see our new van–and us.  What a weekend for seeing Grandmas and Grandpas!

After dinner, Chris took Amy out to play on the playground toys at Brad’s complex.  A short time later Chris carried her into the house and placed her in my lap.  She was whimpering and crying some and her face grew more and more pale as I held her.  I became more and more concerned and when I finally laid her out flat on the bed, she started crying in agony.  I don’t think she has ever been hurt so badly.  There were no visible signs but she was obviously in a lot of pain.  I slept in the bed with her that night and Chris slept in the other room with Alicia (hoping that someone would get a good night’s rest since they were both awake the night before).  She moaned throughout the night and would reach over to make sure that I was still by her side.  Poor thing. 

Chris had permission to work remotely while in Utah and set up shop at Brad’s house Monday morning.  I stuck around because I knew the girls would need naps in the morning.  Since we were in Salt Lake, it wasn’t as easy to take off.  I am not as familiar with Salt Lake, and I would have had to come back and get Chris if I went to Provo.  He finished working around three and we all drove up to Provo together.  We went to the mall and then drove around a bit, looking at our old house and feeling a little homesick for the greenness and beautiful flowers.  We had dinner at Donna’s that evening with everyone–Kings included.  Amy had a fabulous time playing with her cousins.  She was asleep by the time we got back to Brad’s house and slept in his twin bed in another room ALL NIGHT LONG.  Alicia woke up, but this time she fell asleep as I nursed her.

On Tuesday, we drove to Susan’s house for Chris to work and use their fast internet connection for downloading stuff.  Amy loved playing in the back yard on the swings and slides and toys and quickly dubbed it “the park”.  She will certainly need a park in her own back yard soon.  She played with Nathan and Grandma all morning and then with Kaden when he got home from school.  She was so tuckered out by the end of the day that she fell asleep after dinner while watching tv at 6:45 pm.  She stayed asleep as we drove back to Brad’s and even when we put her to bed.  And she slept until 8:15 am.  She needs to play hard more often!

On Wednesday, Chris worked for a short time while I cleaned Brad’s kitchen and the shower in the bathroom.  It took me a couple of hours to do it all.  He has been so busy lately that he doesn’t have time for cleaning.  I cleaned stuff with November and December expirations out of his fridge.  We went out to dinner with our friends from Novell and with Uncle Kevin (Candace was in Washington visiting her family all week so he was getting pretty lonely) so Brad was pretty surprised when he got home to smell Pine Sol.  He said, “I didn’t even know I had Pine Sol.”

Thursday, Chris went to Brad’s practice to try and get all of the computer problems taken care of there.  That took him most of the day which wasn’t so fun for me.  Mom and Dad picked him up around 3:30 and all of us went to Temple Square.  I had reserved tickets at the Legacy Theater to see “The Testament: One Fold and One Shepherd”.  This was Alicia’s first movie in a theater and Amy’s first since she was about five months old.  Amy walked into the theater “all by herself” (which seems to be her motto lately) and tried to seat herself.  She pulled a seat down to sit on it and it was heavier than she realized.  It slipped out of her fingers and popped back up in her face.  She bit into her lip quite badly and the whole theater heard her cry.

Amy was good for about half the movie and then wanted to be up and wandering, but Alicia only made it about 10 to 15 minutes.  I tried to stand up with her in the aisle, I even went to the back row of the theater (it wasn’t very full) to feed her, but she was pretty restless most of the time.  The movie was great, but I would love to be able to see it next time without children to interrupt the mood.

We walked around Temple Square a bit and took some pictures of the girls in the beautiful flowers.  They weren’t smiling too much, but were cute nonetheless.  We visited the Christus and then went to the Conference Center to take a look.  I love Utah in Spring.  It is about three to four weeks ahead of Colorado, and I miss it.  Unfortunately, Alicia was hit hard with allergies and was sneezing, stuffed up, and teary eyed until we got some allergy medicine into her.  From Temple Square, we went to Donna’s for dinner again.  We had originally planned to take Brad out to dinner, but we thought that Amy would have a lot more fun playing with her cousins and doesn’t get to many opportunities to do so.

On Friday, we stopped by Brad’s work, and he gave Chris an eye exam and tried to give one to Amy.  She wasn’t cooperating much and was too shy.  From there, we dropped the girls off at Susan’s while Chris and I went to the temple.  It was our first time in too long of a time (since before Alicia was born).  It was wonderful to be there, and I know that I need to go more often.  I would like to try and go monthly.  We met everyone at Golden Corral for dinner to celebrate Donna’s birthday.  It was fairly crowded and the wait just to get in was about 20 minutes.  Shane was down from Rexburg again as he had a meeting in Provo on Saturday morning.  After dinner, we said our goodbyes and went to Kevin and Candace’s to spend the night.  Candace had just flown back in earlier in the evening.  Amy and Alicia were so tired they fell right to sleep.  Amy cried again in the middle of the night and was pretty disoriented without any nightlights.  I found her trying to find her way around in the dark.  I lay down with her for awhile until she fell back to sleep.  Both she and Alicia slept until 8 am.  (We have decided that they need curtains on their windows to darken their rooms.  The sun comes up so early here and they like to wake up with it.

We had breakfast with Kevin, Candace, and Jonathan, Becky, Kyle and Andrew, and Lori on Saturday morning.  We tried to visit with Becky earlier in the week, but she was gone when we stopped by her house.  After that, we packed up to leave.  We realized that we had left toys at Susan’s house and Shane was bringing Amy’s “baby” to Susan’s since we had forgotten it at Brad’s.  That’s one of those things you just don’t want to lose.  We finally left Provo about 11:45 am and began our journey home.

The girls were much crabbier this time around.  It worked much better traveling earlier in the day with them.  What would normally be an eight hour drive took ten hours with all of the stops.  We were glad to be home though as we had originally planned to come back on Sunday.  I had had enough by Tuesday and we felt as though we had done everything we needed to do.

Sunday, 31 March, 2002

Alicia has been especially crabby the last couple of days.  It is a tell-tale sign that she is teething.  It is so unlike her.  She is usually so easy-going and sweet.  I think it might be her two front top teeth.  Poor thing.  She has been waking up at 5:30 am also.  Poor all of us.

Last week, I was sitting on the stairs with Amy and she said to me, “I love you...Sweetheart.”  That is the first time that she has said it to me.  What a sweetie.  I always say to her.  “Know what?” and she now answers, “I love you.”  She has also taken to calling me “Honey” at times.  I don’t know where she picked that up because I usually use sweetheart and various forms.  She has also started calling kids, boys, and talking about the boys all of the time.  The boys at the park, the boys riding bikes.  Probably just a glimpse of what is to come when she gets older.

Alicia is really good at scooting around the floor.  She hasn’t quite got the hang of full-fledged crawling but has started to get up on her hands and knees and rock.  I say that if she was in the army she would be really good at crawling under the barb wire with the way she moves pulling herself along with her arms and elbows and pushing with her feet.

My brother, Shane, is buying our blue Honda Accord.  We hadn’t planned on selling it quite so soon, but he needs a car as he is going to work in Milwaukee for the summer and this will work out well for him.  He doesn’t have the money to pay us right now (which would be lovely) but will pay us throughout the summer in installments.  We, therefore, are looking for a new vehicle and have decided that a minivan is probably the smartest move for us right now.  Neither Chris nor I are really that excited about being minivan owners and drivers, Chris less than I, but they have plenty of seating that we could expand into and they are safer than SUVs.  We are waiting right now for our income tax to come through before we make a move on anything but have pretty much decided on a 1999 or 2000 Honda Odyssey.  They hold their value really well, as most Hondas do, and have some nice features.  Chris fasted today for blessings and inspiration in our search.

We are going to Utah next week, probably leaving Sunday afternoon after the morning conference.  We are not sure exactly how long we will stay but could possibly be there for the whole week.  My parents are going to be there as well, though we will miss seeing Shane whom they will pick up on their way down.  (He will have to return to BYU-Idaho on Sunday afternoon, but we will likely see him at the end of April when he comes to pick up the car though.)

Monday, 18 March, 2002

There is an opening in the upstairs hallway where you can look down in to the living room.  The other morning I was getting the girls dressed for the day and had already finished Amy and was working on Alicia.  As I finished dressing Alicia and came out into the hallway to go downstairs, Amy was watching tv upstairs with her little forehead pressed against the banister.

Alicia is becoming more mobile all of the time.   Yesterday she started pushing up into a crawling position and also pushing herself backward.  Right now, she rolls all over the floor to get places, but it is not always in the desired direction.  She can cause the most damage in her walker if you aren’t careful with your toes.  Like Amy, she likes to be in the middle of things, and if she happens to be in her walker and you open the dishwasher, she is there in seconds.

I tried putting her to sleep in her crib at the opposite end and in the opposite direction thinking that if I came in to check on her, she wouldn’t see me.  Now, if she isn’t quite asleep and she sees you, her little head comes popping up as fast as can be. When I came back to check on her after she fell asleep, she had turned herself around and scooted back to the other end of the crib.  One night I walked into Alicia’s room, thinking she was fast asleep, to put some clothes away.  All of a sudden, her head popped up and she started looking around.  I immediately dropped to my knees but could still see her straining hard to see over the bumper pads.  I crawled out of her room but not before she spied me and started crying.

Alicia is gaining a lot of skill and dexterity with fine motor skills.  She now claps her hands, all while grinning from ear to ear.  She is also quite adept at picking up cheerios with her thumb and finger AND successfully gets them into her mouth.  She loves to eat and likes most foods so far.  She wasn’t too keen on fruit for awhile but sucks it off the spoon as fast as I can give it to her.  She, as well as Amy, love Yoplait yogurt.  If I don’t feed her as fast as she thinks I should, she reminds me by banging on her high-chair table.  BUT, if you try feeding her something she does not care for, she is quick to show her disapproval with a raspberry.  Amy thinks it is funny and likes to join in.  I started getting after her but that just spurred Amy on to do it more, so now I just ignore her and she quits for lack of attention.  If Alicia does it though, Amy will often say, “no spit!” to her.  Guess she has heard it often enough.

 Amy’s prayers have taken on a whole new length.  She knows to say “Heavenly Father, thanks nice day...” and then proceeds to be grateful for Mommy, Daddy, Isha, Amy, pillows, covers, sun, stars, her baby, grandmas, grandpas, cousins, aunts, uncles, and on and on and on.

Alicia’s first word will be “da da”.  She doesn’t know that it relates to anyone, but says it lots just the same.

Amy has become quite good at disobedience and being naughty.  For her punishment she now has to sit in “time out” for two or three minutes.  She doesn’t like doing it, but she stays put until the kitchen timer dings.  When it does, she usually says, rather loudly, “It dinged!”

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).