life

do you watch it? my family LOVES this show. it's the perfect sunday evening family show.
my new favorite animals:
weedy sea dragons

and japanese mudskippers.

next week that will change.
this is what's been heard at our house while we're watching this show.
"wow! look at...did you see that?!! what in the?!?"
"eeeeew! disgusting! he just barfed"
"i've never EVER seen that."
"how did he do that?!?"
it's an hour all about God's creations
what an amazingly magnificent and awe inspiring world we live in.
this earth, in all its' beauty and variety, is in itself a testament to the reality of the existence of a loving Heavenly Father.
we are so blessed to call this place home.

poor max

poor max didn't get to ski with us on spring break. he was still in his cast.




but the girls had fun skiing with cousins and aunt krissy and uncles ryan and jordan.



he did get to do lots of other fun stuff though.

on sunday he ran (crutched) down to cooper's house to get a pic with the other invalid on the street because tuesday was de-casting day. cooper broke his femur a couple weeks after max on the same ski hill max broke his leg. but cooper's was much worse and required surgery and metal bars and a wheelchair and all that.

one last shot of the shabby cast. this was cast number two. the first one was bright blue. then they felt sorry that he had to get a new one so they gave max a really spiffy model. the white parts glow in the dark.

he wore a hole in the heel.

off comes cast number two.

but wait. orange cast? sad face? yes. he's been sentenced to two more weeks of crutches. not quite healed.
dang it! poor kid. i guess this means no basketball camp over spring break. and i probably should pull him out of football since we're already three weeks into it and he hasn't been able to do anything but cheer for his team.


but max is a trooper. he was bummed for a little bit yesterday but he's back to his good ol' self. rolling with the punches over here. we're seven weeks in on this. two more weeks. i can do it. i mean max can do it. (i think i was more excited about max getting his cast off than he was.) oh well.

here we go

here i am at 20 weeks


well guys, here's the big news around here:
baby number five will be gracing us with HER presence the end of july/ beginning of august.
four girls.
oh my.
poor max.
i'm a little sad for max because he wanted a brother so badly,
but we're all thrilled.
wish us luck, because i'm a little freaked out.
i know wade is.

in other totally unrelated news, i caught devan shaving her legs in the shower this morning.
her technique was perfect, but i think two years old is a little too young for that sort of thing.

my father's dragon

did you love this book when you were little like i did? this was another one of my long lost stories from when i was a kid that i found at the good will.
it's funny, i recognized it immediately, but the only part of the story i remembered was of elmer elevator sitting under a tangerine tree eating tangerine after tangerine. the dragon, of course i remembered because i made a clay model of him for a book report. i remember carefully painting the blue and yellow stripes while we were at my grandparent's cabin. whatever happened to that thing? it went in the trash i'm sure


i was thrilled when my kids loved this book as much i did. i was kind of worried i had built it up in my mind but it was even better than i remembered (which wasn't hard to do, i guess, since i remembered so little).

this book is perfect for little little kids all the way up to older kids because the story is interesting and funny enough to keep the older kids interested, and there are enough fabulous illustrations to captive the little ones.



i guess now we need to read the other two books about elmer and his dragon.

p.s. i need to find out the relation of the author and illustrator who have the same first and last name, but different middle names.
sisters-in-law both named ruth?

houdini's in the house... or rather, OUT of the house

now that warm weather is upon us i fear we're going to have to resume our daily regiment of tracking down the girls, the two youngest girls. i'd hoped that a long stretch of uninviting outdoor temperatures, icy driveways, and chilling winds would be enough to make my girls forget the temptations of "the great escape". apparently not so. it's been years since any kind of child proofing lock has worked for whitney, in particular, but last year i discovered none would work for devan either. the constant toll of "where's whitney" rang through the hallways of our house and i found myself wishing the inviting summer weather away, in hopes that it might dissuade the little booger from her frequent escapades into nature. well, sunny days are here again and i'm finding the situation little improved, actually i'm finding the situation exacerbated by the self-realization of another little free spirit. devan has caught the bug.
yesterday my neighbor called me.
"did you know whitney #2 (that's devan) is here?"
of course i hadn't known because she had been at my side LITERALLY two second earlier!!
so now i see the chain locks will have to resume their full-time employment from now until next winter. and even those aren't 100% reliable with these two.
but i can't keep them out of the backyard, even though the 6 foot fence poses nary an obstacle.
whitney conquered that last fall, and my hopes of her having forgotten the thrill of the climb were dashed when i entered the backyard last week only to find my little four-year-old teaching her seven-year-old cousin the techniques of a seamless over-the-wall escape (without success). i'm sure her next pupil will be devan. and i'm sure she'll catch on more quickly than the last.
and earlier today i spent ten minutes searching my neighbor's vacant house for whitney, who went missing when we went out front for a few minutes. i swear, i watch my girls. they just watch me even closer, waiting for the second i turn my attention.
AAAAARRRGGHH!!!
will my summer be spent searching for and chasing my girls down the street, again?!?
time will tell.

dear ross and tj maxx stores,

could you do me a solid and put the price tags on the BACK of your framed pictures? it's not that i don't appreciate the actual numbers on the sticker, but it's a bit of a bother having to spend an hour rubbing sticker glue off the glass.
sincerely,
me

it was bound to happen

a couple of weeks ago i took a long weekend to see my sister's new little baby, nico. THE sweetest thing ever.

bille and her husband, mike, live right down town in san francisco so, like most of the trips i take, the routs of all of our outings were dictated by food.
oh, such great food.

we picked up some sandwiches from a deli in a little specialty grocery store (jenni, i kept thinking how much you would love this store) with the friendliest sandwich makers i've ever encountered.
the guy who made mine kept smiling at me funny and then instead of calling my name when my sandwich was done he walked out from behind the counter into the store and handed it to me saying,
"here's your sandwich, elizabeth"
i tried not to laugh.
it was COLD and WINDY so we walked our sandwiches down the street to tartine and ordered desert and hot chocolate and sat to consume our feast.
oh my! oh my!
The most delicious lemon cream tart with a candied kumquat atop.

and the bread pudding. oh, i'm getting flashbacks.

the sandwiches were amazing. we took turns trading back and forth.

then there was the giant bowl of hot bittersweet chocolate. if hot chocolate is too sweet for your taste, then this is the stuff for you. the perfect combination of sweet and bitter. amazing to the very end.
i will say, we did encounter an iffy food item in japan town when we were forced to scramble for a compromise after we discovered the pizza place we'd made a special outing to was closed to prepare for dinner. bille and i were starving, okay i was starving and we saw a crepe place that looked popular (this was after we found plan B - a great sushi place- was also closed. don't people realize that eating happens at all hours of the day?).
anywho, ordered pesto chicken crepes and i was thoroughly enjoying mine until about two third into my crepe when bille observed,
"this kind of tastes like a hot dog."
dang it. i was so hungry it just tasted good. after that it was ruined to me.
don't get me wrong. i like hot dogs just as much as the next guy, maybe even more, but i don't like hot dog flavored pesto chicken. that's just a mean trick.
a couple of days later my mom came up and it was, you guessed it, more food, mingled with shopping and having makeup done at bloomingdale's by a drag queen, a fact which my mom was totally oblivious to. she said she though a couple of times, "this woman isn't very attractive, but she does herself up nice."
we just laughed at her (my mom).


saturday i went with my dad to his office so he could get some plans and check his email on his dinosaur of a computer.
i made fun of it. but his typing skills have improved. he uses more than two fingers now.



did you know my dad designed the temple grounds at the oakland temple? he's talent.

during a lovely visit with my dear friends bill and toni, whom i've known well since high school, i got a call from wade.

max broke his leg skiing. yikes! it was bound to happen.

so this is what i came home to the next day. he now has a real cast all the way up to his butt, but he's getting around really well on his own now and has done zero complaining. pretty amazing considering how bad the break was.


thanks for the trip, nico. can't wait ot see you again.

curling on my head

the other night we watched the canadians kick butt in curling.
very exciting.
in awe and praise of the sport wade asked,
"what other sport can combine bowling, ice hockey, chess, shuttle board and janitorial skills like that!?"
awesome.

it's that time of year

"what time of year? ", you ask.
the time of year when these are in great abundance on (seemingly) every shelf and in every corner and EVERYWHERE i look as i stroll the aisles of the grocery store intent on keeping purchases chocolate free.
but i fail.
and now the bag sits in the pantry.
unopened.
calling to me.
but it's still unopened.
although, the bag of peanut butter m&ms are long gone (my all year temptation).
so there's a method.
place a perfect pastel egg on the center of your tongue.
now roll it around for a while until the formerly thickish shell is paper thin.
then gently crack the shell off with your back teeth leaving only the sweet milky goodness to slowly dissolve away.
and that is pure bliss.
i'm not kidding.
now don't you feel sorry for me this time of year?

edit: stop telling me about the christmas cad minis and the dark chocolate ones. this does not help me at all.
p.s. the bag still has not been opened.

she prefers shots

at the doctor's today they had one nasal mist left for the girls' booster flu vaccine.
dilemma.
which child to subject to the poke?
whitney or devan? whitney or devan?
so i asked.
"whitney, do you want a squirt up the nose or a pokey shot in the leg?"
not even a split-second later,
"i want the shot mom!"
awesome.
"you know it will poke, right?"
"yup, but it won't hurt a lot."
she watched with interest as the needle went in and the vaccine was injected.
all done.
then she smiled at the nurse.
so weird.
i know the shot really doesn't hurt very much at all, but what kid wants one?

21 balloons

i finished reading this book to my kids a little while ago. this was one of my favorite books when i was little and i wanted to read it to my kids but couldn't remember the title. i found it at the goodwill and instantly recognized it as the "long lost" book of my childhood. the kids loved it (i was worried it might be too boring). Max was the most interested since it has to do with some of his favorite subjects : adventures of flight, hidden treasures, and active volcanos. he kept sneaking the book at night and reading ahead of us. i was surprised at how attentive and engaged even whitney was with the story.
the book is filled with amazing illustrations of the fabulous contraptions and inventions of the people of the island of krakatoa.


the plot line is thrilling, suspenseful and educational all at once and i'm sure we'll be reading it again.

we're having a great winter

hello, nico

meet nico. she's my newest little niece.
my younger sister and her husband's first baby.
isn't she the most adorable thing you've ever seen?
i can't wait to meet her and cover her with kisses.
great job mike and bille!