more stuff, but mostly delaney, and mostly at jump bunch

addie read the girls a book before school one morning. moments like this make my heart happy.

one day at jump bunch the kids did cup stacking.

and like her big bro and big sis before her, she loved it.

so far jump bunch has been a hit. if only they could remember that i am always right. if only, if only.

they got to stack them however they wanted and then knock them over with a ball. d stacked all 6 up in a tall tower and she found that 1 tower was harder to knock down than it might seem.

at the end all the kids built a giant pyramid with all the cups and got to knock them down. building said pyramid took forever. the kids accidentally kept knocking cups down. coach reggie has the patience of a saint, I tell ya.

super fun.

one last zoo shot from alecia. :) oh, and we did the zoo without a stroller. second big outing sans stroller and it's kind of awesome. not that Delaney didn't cop a ride in the stroller when she saw an opportunity, but you know.

franks got paint in her hair at school one day. another exciting event in the exciting days of our lives.

aviator readers! except addie's is missing and I need to email about it.

we went to dinner at mccombs one night and Delaney sweet talked laura into not only making muffins, but letting her help laura make muffins. lucky ducky.

speaking of numero cinco, she's the best shoe putter away'er. when she's in the mood (about 50% of the time) she'll stay in the mudroom until every shoe is with it's pair and they are all neatly in their cubbies. she's pretty impressive.

she can also stuff a lot of food in her mouth. when she wants to.

and she loooooves her lovey. this is a staged picture (can you tell?) but she had literally just kissed her lovey goodbye, so I made her do it again and this awkward shot ensued.

and this day in jump bunch news they played leap frog.

and look, I took a picture of our trolls date!

catching up.

stuff

delaney climbed into bed with me yesterday, and since i magically wasn't contagious anymore, i let her. and when d wants a pic, d gets a pic. one day (pre-strep) i said to her "come here please," and she said "okay, m." when i asked why she called me 'm' she said it's because i call her 'd'. fair enough.

anyways, this picture was yesterday, and then today i felt well enough to shower. apparently delaney took notice. i had to call the school and talked to lorrie for a minute, and then when matt and i went in (after he'd dropped d off) lorrie told me that she could tell i wasn't feeling great, so she'd asked delaney if i'd been sick. delaney said "yes, she's been sick. but she's feeling better today, she even took a shower." thanks, laney-love.

today was mrs. g's birthday and even though i didn't do what we'd originally planned, i still managed to bring a card for the kids to sign, give the kids treats (not my best teacher birthday move, but i blame it on brain fog), and present the gluten free cake another mom had picked up. we looooove our mrs. g, so i hope she felt the love.

tonight was the big Eagle Scout Recognition Dinner at the church. it was quite lovely. the rs room was decorated so nicely and everything looked amazing. the dinner was 5 courses - cheese and meat appetizers, butternut squash soup, salad, chicken cordon bleu, and 2 different parfait style desserts.

chris made fun of me for snapping a pic of my soup, so i snapped one of the two of us.

the cool table.

at the end of the evening they had all the eagles stand up and tell about their eagle projects, degree, and profession.

it was great and interesting.

from surgeon to pilot to banker and some in between, pretty distinguished group of men.

we had arden over to babysit and all were happy and all went well. good night.

last saturday we had the opportunity to volunteer with our interfaith council food drive. the opportunity came up midweek and i thought instead of asking someone, since i was free, we could do it. i had to take the girls since matt was gone to a youth planning breakfast, but it led to a good conversation on why or how kids might not have enough to eat. and for picky little eaters like mine, i know they can't really even fathom that. i can hardly fathom it.

the girls were pretty well behaved. it was super chilly and there wasn't much to do. they made some fun with the other two kids that were there, niece and nephew to a nice pagan representative named rachel. we had an interesting discussion about what she believes, which is so fascinating to me.

i'd say i'm 75% better, for which i am grateful. now i just need to work past some reflux (fun) and the general feeling of exhaustion after an illness. and then tackle my house. the dishes are done and the kids are happy and that's all that matters. the rest of the house, notso hotso. but that's ok, i am still grateful. 

election zoo day

i almost put a slash there, but then i realized it didn't really need one after all. firstly, i voted. after the day was done i listened and read in shock and disbelief as the results came in. i just couldn't sleep. i was surprised at how uneasy i was left feeling when it became apparent that trump won. matt would roll over and ask how it was looking and i'd tell him incredulously, only to do it again in another hour. i just don't know what to think, but i do know that america has always been great, and it will keep on being great. one person just doesn't have enough power to make it not so, not that i think he'd even try. enough on that though.

alecia had asked if i'd like to go to the temple (always yes) via the zoo (always yes x2). these two kiddos, whose mama's shared a baby shower, have literally known each other since before they were born.

one day our dinner convo was all about lexi and what her new last name will be (big news!) and that lead to "what if i marry (insert every male friend's name here), what will my last name be?" including, but not limited to, curtis. just sayin'.

we met up with leisa and her crew too. these 3 little friends were so cute together. not as cute is delaney's obsession with skirts. we had made a deal that the next day (zoo day) she would wear jeans. so i got her dressed (under duress) and then out she came with this ruffly green skirt that matches next to nothing. and you know what? i just don't care. also, i just noticed frankie on the left side of the pic pushing the darrows stroller like a mad-woman.

curtis sandwich.

we followed the elephant prints in search of a nice lunch spot. but we decided the elephants were a tad too stinky to be a good lunch spot.

it was the most gorgeous day! perfect, perfect.

and it was a best for a lot of things. like panda encounters. this little bao-bao was soooo funny. he climbed and played and almost fell, all right in front of us, it was so fun!

and these seals were pretty darn fun too. the kids would move their arms and they'd follow, it was so great. leisa said she's seen them to do it better, but unless i'm just forgetting (entirely possible) i never have.

my girls loooove the zoo sign and could play here for hours. so we just had to stop here on our way out.

cute preschool friends!

and one last of my baby, because she asked.

then some last minute tree climbing as we raced back down the hill.

fall deliciousness. every time we drive anywhere i tell the girls to appreciate the beauty all around them, because when you live is a desert you get none of this. and i love it soooo much.

from the zoo we went to leisa's, where we dropped our kids off with leisa, who is a saint and offered to watch them for us so we could go to the temple. it was 2:52 when we raced out of the house to try to make it to the 3:00 session. alecia's speedy driving got us there right at 3:00, where we played the "7 kids with a babysitter" card to get them to hold things for us. if it wasn't so true i might feel badly, but as it turns out i don't, not at all. it was a wonderful time in the temple with a wonderful friend, and all made possible by another wonderful friend.

we picked up our kiddos and headed to dinner at cafe rio. duh, duh, duh. my gps and i started out on the wrong foot with it making me do a square maneuver and attempt to turn left on the busiest street known to man. so when it started telling me that branch ave exit was closed i said, oh no, you silly thing, i'm not falling for your shenanigans again. only i should have. i really should have. branch ave was closed and my non-listening added at least an hour onto our trip. we were all tired, hungry, and bored by the time we finally rolled up to cafe rio. and i'm still dreaming about their delicious salads.

meanwhile, bubba and his surrogate family went to a Caps game. fun. :)

the rest of our trip home was uneventful. thank goodness. so much excitement for one day.

veterans day

we love our small town veterans day parade. helps that we've had participants in it the last few years, but you know.

all the years we've had walkers (4?) matt has walked with them. he's such a good daddy.

i thought this group of soldiers was awesome.

and this guy, who i thought was governor larry hogan, but matt let me know was just county commissioner todd b. morgan. close enough. and after he gave each of the girls a fist bump they talked about how hard his fist bumps were. love these girls.

clydesdales.

our daisies! franks is in the back on the right.

there she is!

we sat on the wrong side of the street and it was sooo sunny!

and also, i can't read weather temperatures anymore and i dressed the girls like we were heading into the arctic, and then it was warm. i didn't worry about them wearing red, white, and blue cause i didn't think they'd take their coats off. doy.

dorns sat by us and chelsea snapped this one so mama could be in it. that's nice and rarely happens.

this girl and these glasses were the hit of the parade. everybody commented on them. she loves 'em.

and some of our daisies pre-parade.

cute girls!

maybe one of these years i'll walk with them, but for now i'm happy being an observer. :)

also:

*one day we picked the girls up from school and told them we had to go clean the church, only us, no other families from our awesome team. they were all kind of like ….oh, ok. then we surprised them and went to see trolls, which i thought was silly and cute. they loved the surprise.

*we've spent lots of time outside soaking up the last few days of this gorgeous indian summer. every time i say to myself, we've got to enjoy these days, they won't last. and to my delight, they have.

*chris still spends almost every night (but not the whole night) at brian's. bri-guy is prepping for his mission to taiwan in december, so there's a good deal of hoping and praying that he's rubbing off on chris.

*the said duo also taught "an amazing" eq lesson on sunday, complete with a microwaved lightbulb object lesson. we'll skip the part where they went to target before church to buy the lightbulb.

*and we also did lots of other stuff. the end.

hello, old friend

i have missed my blog. and simultaneously dreaded the catch up that i know i will make myself do. i still have some sick in bed time to capitalize on, so i might be able to catch up a little bit.

i woke up tuesday with a sore throat, and by the time i got home after my presidency meeting i had chills, neck, back, and headache, and my throat was killing. i crawled into bed and gave frankie, who was sent home not feeling well on monday, due to what we thought was her 6-year-molars, my phone. (awful sentence, I'm rusty) i always love finding pictures kids take. :)

things went from bad to worse and i made an appointment on wednesday morning. my 1:00 appointment lasted until 3 (!) where it was determined that i had a "very positive strep throat." thankfully chris was off and he got girls to and from school and matt came home early. i was completely useless. after my positive strep test i started thinking that was probably what frankie had, even though she hadn't really complained about her throat. I'd expect her to feel sick with her molars for a day or 2, but 5 was kind of pushing it. so matt made her an appointment for today and sure enough, strep. poor baby was sick since saturday and i feel like a terrible mama. it's so hard when they're playing one minute, sick the next. now if she was like me and down for the count from the get-go, that i could understand.

now i've had two doses of antibiotics and i'm feeling so much better. still not great, but i can actually function now, and i've been awake for like, 4 hours, so that's pretty good. and on monday it was cold so we made our first mitchell/aina hot cocoa of the season. yuuuumy.

this was my lame attempt at catching the super moon as it was going down fast monday morning. then monday evening it was too cloudy to see anything so our super moon experience was kind of a bust.

in other exciting frankie news, she lost her first tooth! she was wiggling, wiggling, wiggling, and out it popped. exciting! the tooth fairy brought her a purple sparky $5'er and her own little bottle of fairy dust. and they followed the trail from the window to her bed. the first time the tooth fairy comes to each child she goes all out. after that, not so much.

in other news:

• matt has been amazingly holding down the fort. he took today off and i am so thankful that i was able to rest and let my body do it's thing and heal. he even made homemade chicken noodle soup tonight and it was delish.
• lexi made her first visit to the honor code office. it looks like two of her roommates might be kicked out, another one went and implicated several of the roomies, and tensions are high. makes me sad.
• chris got registered for classes and put an application in to some apartments. t-minus-2 and a half months and it's getting real.
• addie is getting an award at school on monday. she's got all a's and still enjoys school. she's a friend to all, but still hasn't replaced gracie with a new best friend. and maybe that's ok.
• franks will hopefully be on the up and up. she's missed 3 days of school this week, and have i mentioned how bad i feel that we didn't realize it was strep till today?
• delaney is a sweet little sassafras. i have had to bite my tongue at everyones appearance as i've been sick. today frankie lent laney her favorite leggings, ones that she doesn't get to wear very often because they go with literally nothing. i don't even think lanes got her hair brushed. oh well. she came home very incredulous because logan's dad told him, and logan told her, that the sun was bigger than the world, and she did not believe the sun was bigger than the world (earth). even when we talked about it, she still was not quite willing to say she accepted the truth.

being sick makes me sentimental, and i spent a good deal of time reading old blogs today. it also makes me want to take better care of myself. i am so grateful to be feeling better.