The last things on my calender

Here I am on Wednesday.  I'm 39 weeks in this picture, and ready for the baby to come.  We figured out a few days ago that if this baby had been born at 36 weeks, and had spent 18 days in the NICU like Charlotte and Lydia we still would have been home by now.  Oh well, this baby is actually pretty considerate.  We had a busy weekend, and as much as I wouldn't have minded going to the hospital and having a baby, I'm glad that I was able to participate in all the things that went on.  Here are some of the things we did.

Thursday was the memorial service for my friend Anna.  I needed closure from her death, and I found it at the service. One of her friends read a letter that Anna wrote about her testimony of the gospel.  I found so much comfort hearing her own words.  

Then Friday was Brandon's Grandma's funeral.  It was a very nice service.  The funeral itself was very short - which was good since Ruth had 15 great-grandchildren all under 7 and most of them were sitting in the first three rows of the chapel. All us parents were glad we only had to keep our kids happy for less than an hour.  At the cemetery Brandon was a pall bearer.  And then we all went back to the church for a delicious luncheon.    

The whole event felt more like a family reunion than a funeral.  Brandon's brother's family came up from Arizona so we were excited to see them.  All Brandon's siblings and their families hung around and talked for a long time.  Eventually though it was time to get going.  Charlotte and Lydia were beyond tired and needed naps.  So we went home and put them to bed.  Later when they woke up we let them play outside while still in their church clothes.  

They had lots of fun outside.  They love the potting soil on our patio.  And it was such great weather!  We all were outside and barefoot.

I was in a lot of pain from all the walking, standing, lifting, chasing, and everything that I did all day.  My legs were cramping and I was hoping I was in labor.  I was pretty sure I wasn't because all the cramping was on the outside of my legs. Still I was hoping that maybe something would happen during the night.

But nothing did, because this baby wanted his older sisters to have fun with their cousins. Today we all gathered at Grandma Ruth's apartment one last time.  Brandon's parents have been working feverishly to get it cleaned out before the land lord charges them rent for April.  They cleaned it out in time and Brandon and the other men helped load the last of the furniture.  Since we were all together we took this impromptu family picture.

Then we went to a nearby park, The Peace Gardens.  The kids played in the sand while Bestemor and some of the Aunts set up an Easter Egg hunt.  I'd learned my lesson from the day before and didn't do much more than walk around. Brandon and everyone else were in charge of carrying the girls.

Most everyone was really excited for the hunt to start.

Lydia was content to do her own thing.

When the hunt started Lydia was more interested in collecting rocks than eggs.

Charlotte knew what to do though.  (It's a good thing we have two kids or else we would have been eating a lot of rocks instead of candy.)

Eventually Bestemor decided Lydia needed a little help gathering eggs.

Even with help, Lydia only gathered about 6 eggs.  But that was enough to get her sufficiently covered in candy.

Charlotte and Owen discovered the fun of playing with the rocks.  Charlotte's hands were sticky and she could pick up rocks without needing to make a fist.

After the egg hunt we said goodbye to some of the family then headed to lunch with Bryan and Kara.  Then we all went to Wheeler farm with our friend Jake and his siblings and their kids.  They all wanted to see Bryan and Kara while they were in town.  It's amazing how fast and easy a family get-together can come together.  

The girls loved seeing all the animals.

Eventually it was time to come home. We'd had a great day, but we were all exhausted.  The girls got baths, played for a little bit, and then went to bed without complaint.  The egg hunt was the last thing listed on my calender for the next several weeks.  I'm ready for this baby to come!  And hopefully he is ready too.

On a happier note

I thought I'd do a little update on the girls before the arrival of their little brother eclipses them for a little bit.

They will be 17 months old on the 31st.  This is such a FUN age.  They aren't talking much, but they understand a lot.  They run to their high chairs if I ask them if they want to eat.  They run to the closet if I tell them it's time to get dressed.  And they run away if I ask them if it's time for a diaper change.

The only words (and I mean the ONLY words) they say right now are WOW (Charlotte) and Yesth (Lydia).  But they communicate pretty well.  They both nod their heads to say yes.  Though sometimes Lydia just nods yes to everything.  They will also shake their heads no when then don't want to do something.  They bring me their shoes when they want to go outside.  I always feel so cruel telling them that we'll go outside later when it's warmer.  They are pretty good at pointing at what they want.  They are also obsessed with seeing my outtie belly button, and then pulling up their shirts to look at their own.

I don't think they understand we are going to have a new baby.  I talk to them about him in the hopes that they might catch on.  And I tell them that soon they are going to Grandma's and Grandpa's without me, but that I'll come back.  Maybe they know what I'm saying.  They have learned to point to my tummy (or sometimes their own tummies) when I ask them where the baby is.  This usually results in another look at all our belly buttons.

Once a week I have to go to the doctor.  I schedule the appt as early as possible.  My upstairs neighbors come down at 7:30 and watch the girls while I take Brandon to work and then go to the doctor.  I'm usually back by 9:30.  At first the girls were sad to see me leave, but now it doesn't even bother them.  Two weeks ago Lydia even waved goodbye and the turned around and walked away to go see the movie that our neighbor brought down.

Sometimes Charlotte will go into her room and try to get into her crib when she is ready to lie down for a nap.  Don't ask me how I got so lucky.  She just started doing that on her own.

They usually take either two hour long naps each day or one two hour long nap.  Usually they nap at the same time.  Sometimes they will "tag team" me and alternate who is awake and whose asleep.  On these days I don't get my own nap or anything else done, but I do like spending one on one time with each girl.

Charlotte loves to dance.  If she even hears a snippet of music she will start to bob up and down, twirl, and wave her arms.  Lydia dances by energetically waving her arms up and down.  Both girls love the pop corn popping song.  Lydia will open and shut her hands when she wants me to sing it.

The girls also love to sing- especially at church.  They each like to sit and hold the hymn book and turn the pages.  And they really do try to sing.  They say things like Aaaaaahhhhhhh and Ooooohhhhh while everyone else says the words.  I love it.

They are they only nursery age kids in our branch so they have been going to nursery since January.  At first they would just go during Sunday School on weeks that Brandon taught.  But gradually we started sending them every week and then for the full time.  It was a little hard, and one o'clock church didn't help, but now they like going.

Here is a little video that shows how much fun the girls are to hang out with all day long.  I'm so glad I get to be their mom.

A little bit about death

There will be a new little person on this earth within the next few days or weeks.  And while I constantly think about him (because he's constantly kicking me) I can't stop thinking about death too.  That's because three of my friends died this month.  

The first was Penny.  She was the first person to talk to me in my branch.  She was one of the Sr missionaries and was amazing.  She taught the 4th Sunday lesson every other month, and I always enjoyed her lessons.  About 7 months ago she went in for heart surgery and never really came home from the hospital.  She just couldn't get better.  Her death, while sad, came at a good time for her and her family.  They were at the point where they were needing to make decisions about how to pay for long term care and other complicated things.  

At her funeral everyone spoke highly of her.  It made me wish that we could have funerals while people are still alive.  I would love to go up to her and ask her what it was like to get a Master's Degree.  Why she chose to be a stay at home mom for 10 years, and what led her to go back to teaching.  I want to know what gave her the courage to battle leukemia as a teenager and later breast cancer with three young girls.  But she's gone and I found out about those remarkable things a little too late.  

Before she went in for heart surgery she and her husband went to Europe.  They went because a friend told her, "you're not getting any younger."  I'm glad she listened to her friend.

The next death was Anna, and her death was completely unexpected.  I'm still in shock from loosing her.  She helped clean my new apartment only a few days before.  In fact, I was still texting her after she died.  It was normal for her to not answer texts so I didn't think anything of it.  But now I wonder, what if I had worried?  What if I had gone over to her house?  There are so many what if's and questions surrounding her passing that I've found it's better not to obsess about them.  

Instead I choose to think about the happy times with her.  She hosted a fabulous Labor Day BBQ.  She had me over for dinner.  We had a girls night once where she let me have some clothes she no longer wanted  And we had many talks about men, and happiness, and life in general.  She wanted so badly to be at peace.  I feel like she has found that peace now.

And then out of the blue we got news that Brandon's Grandma Ruth was in the hospital.  There was time for Brandon and his cousin to visit her while on their lunch break.  A few hours later they got a phone call saying she had died.  This was only 6 days after we celebrated her 80th birthday.

My first thought was, "I'm so glad we took the picture of her and the girls."  No one else had been taking pictures at the party so I felt a little weird asking for one.  But I just felt like we needed one.  I'm glad we took the time to do this.  I've learned to never hesitate to take a picture.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a very close relationship with Ruth.  She and I never "clicked."  She was just so old and set in her ways and a little bossy to me.  I wonder if we had been closer to the same age would I have been able to be a better friend?  I do know that she sent me a birthday card every year on my birthday.  And the card was always signed "I love you."  And I know that she meant it.  

We have a few things that she made around the house, and now they are suddenly filled with so much meaning.  And it's kind of sad because we used to laugh about them.  She made a quilt for Brandon that had the pattern of little girls in sunbonnets on it.  He got it in high school and always said that if any other guys knew about that quilt he'd probably get beat up. Now it's going to be displayed at her funeral.  She gave me 2 pink and 2 yellow quilts at my baby shower for the girls.  The fabric was old fashioned and the stitching was a little off.  But I always liked those quilts because I could use them on walks and not feel bad if they got caught in the stroller wheels.  Now I'm trying to decide if I should treat them better.      

One year for Christmas she bought each of her grandchildren a bed spread.  Brandon and I went to get ours along with his twin Bryan and his wife Kara.  Grandma took us into her spare bedroom and pulled out a huge California King bed spread with lighthouses all over it.  Kara graciously said thank you while I secretly grinned and was glad it wasn't mine.  Then Grandma said, "And Valerie, Steven told me your favorite color was purple."  Instantly I stopped looking so smug.  I HATE purple.  And she was handing me a bed spread with large purple flowers all over it.  Some how I was able to thank her for it and tell her it was lovely.  I even took it home, put it on my bed, took a picture of it, and sent her the picture.  Then I traded Brandon's sister for her gift comforter that was pink and green and would actually match the rest of my house.  But I did appreciate her giving me what she thought was my favorite color.  Every year when Ruth sent me a birthday card with purple things on it, I would smile at her thoughtfulness.  

Her passing has been hard on the family.  Emotionally of course, but also strategically.  She left no funeral instructions, no will, no list of bills she pays, no instructions for who gets what, nothing.  How do you carry out someone's final wishes if you don't know what they are?

Watching her children's efforts to do the best they can to honor their mother has made me think about what I would want done for me.  I'm not planning on dying anytime soon, but just in case here are somethings I would want.

• I want to be buried with my wedding ring
• Fake flowers were good enough for my wedding so the will be just fine at my funeral.  (In fact, if possible just use the same flowers.  They are in a box in the closet)
• I want "Each Life That Touches Ours for Good" sung at the funeral.
• I seriously doubt that many of my friends read newspaper obituaries.  Brandon has my blog and facebook passwords.  He can just post something on those sights - or their future equivalents.  (I expect to outlive newspapers as an effective means of communication)  
• I want everyone to know that I lived a happy life with no regrets (except for maybe some of the clothes I wore when I was younger)

These three deaths have been hard.  However, I'm excited for three new lives that will be joining my family soon.  My boy should be here soon.  And then at the end of the month my sister, Lindsey, and my sister in law, Kara, are each expecting babies about a day apart.  So while there have been some unexpected deaths recently, there are some eagerly anticipated lives as well. 

Through the looking glass

Our new apartment has the exact same floor plan as our old one.  There is one major difference though - it's the mirror image.  This threw us off for the first couple days, but now we are used to it.  Charlotte and Lydia haven't seemed to even notice. 

There are some other differences too and I'll point them out to you as I take you on a tour of our new home.  Let's start in the Kitchen.

When you walk in the front door this is the first thing you will see.  We always *try* to keep the counter clean, but since we have two very grabby toddlers the counter usually ends up full of stuff that we are keeping away from them.  The counter here is actually about 6 inches higher than our last apartment so we have that much longer to keep things away from the girls.  We also actually have storage space under the counter.  I'm so happy for that space.  The girls like to go sit under there.  And don't you just love the floor?  I do. It is linoleum, but it looks amazing.  My only complaint about the floor is that now light colored cracker crumbs show up a little too well.  

One of the first things I do when I move into any apartment is put contact paper down in the bottom of every shelf and drawer.  This is my favorite pattern yet!  We bought it at Smith Market Place for about $7 a roll.  It makes me so happy every time I see it.  

Sometimes I just stand and stare at how good it looks on the shelves under the counter.  Or maybe I'm just happy to have shelves under the counter.  As you can see in this picture our wall is seriously lacking in art.  Charlotte wandered off with the package of drywall hooks and I haven't found it anywhere.  So until I find it, or until I break down and buy a new one I don't have any of the big pictures up on my "art gallery wall."

 Here is a look at the kitchen from the front room.  My kitchen colors are red white and black.  I just love how the red pops out.

 And here is a slightly different angle.  Yeah, I love red.

Next we have the Living Room.  Brandon and I swear this room is bigger than in our old apartment.  I don't know how that is possible, but it just seems bigger.  I do know the window is shifted just a little bit so our window seat fits under it a little bit better.  We were also able to hang Brandon's plane up above the entertainment center.  

Speaking of the window seat, I haven't blogged about the cool things we've done with it.  We bought a foam pad and I made a cover for it out of a old shower curtain my aunt gave me (If I'd actually spent money on the fabric I wouldn't have chosen white)  Then I dug out some pillows that my mom made me in college.  I also made me two new pillows out of old and well loved shirts.  The middle green one was my favorite shirt forever.  The blue cloud pillow was a shirt I never liked.  My mom made it for me in 9th grade, and for some reason I never thought it was that cute.  However, every single time I wore the shirt I got complements on it.  So I hung on to it all these years.  I like it a lot more as a pillow.  

This is the living room the other direction.  Notice how the table doesn't have any chairs around it?  Well the girls can climb chairs so we scoot them up against the walls when we aren't using them.  

I love this grouping of our vacation montage pictures.  This year we are planning on going to Colorado!  

From the living room you can go outside to the patio.  I LOVE that all I have to do to entertain the girls is open the door.  They walk outside and can enjoy themselves for at least an hour.  We do have a big dirt patch in front of the patio, but the grass seems like it will grow in okay.  And I'd much rather deal with dirt/mud than stairs.  Dirt washes out, concussions don't.

Charlotte and Lydia love playing in my potting soil and putting rocks and sticks into buckets.  They also love interacting with all the neighbors and the neighbors dogs.  I think I've talked to more of my neighbors in the past week than I did the whole year and a half we've lived here.

Here are the girls playing with their dirt.  We are still on the shady north side of the the building so I'm not planning much of a garden this year.  This may be the most action the potting soil sees.  This move was really good for us because we were able to get rid of a lot of the junk we stored on the patio.  Brandon threw away a lot of wood and both of us decided it was time to get rid of our peach pit collection. (Don't even ask)

The next room you come to after the living room is our hall/laundry room.  It's also where we have the diaper changing station located on top of the dryer.  I had all these pictures up in our old apartment.  I was debating whether or not I wanted to put any of them up again - most of them are pretty out dated.  But I put them up any way.  Charlotte and Lydia were so happy to see them.  They like to point and jabber on about each picture.  

I did an experiment with the cupboards above the washer and dryer.  Here is the before picture:

 And here is the after.  I totally LOVE how the contact paper looks on the backs of the cupboards.

I love it so much that I keep leaving the doors open just so I can look at it.  I have left over contact paper and I'm debating whether or not I want to do this in the kitchen.  I think I'll wait and make that decision after the baby comes.  

 From the laundry room you can go into Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick's room.

This is the girls' side of the room.  It looks a little boring, but I have plans for something really cool to do on the wall above their cribs.  Depending on if I'm still pregnant next week I'll either get it done in the next couple day or four months from now :)

 And this is Derrick's side of the room.  (For some reason these two pictures remind me of Better Homes and Garden's using color before and after photos)

 That shelf above the book case was the last thing I needed Brandon to do for me before I could finish getting the room arranged right.  Between everything we had going on he never had a chance to do it.  Apparently it mattered a lot to me because late Wednesday night after the girls had been put to bed I started crying about how I just needed this one shelf put up.  The girls hadn't fallen asleep yet so Brandon hurried and put up the shelf while they watched.  Thanks Baby!

The bathroom is pretty much the same as it has always been.  I've had the same make up holder, toothbrush holder, and soap dish for years (The hand soap dispenser is new though)

 And you can't see it, but there is tile in the shower!  I love it.

The last room is our bedroom.  We are back in the smaller bedroom which I like a lot more than the bigger one.  Here is my bed.  Normally I'm not much of an afghan type person, but this afghan is special.  When we lived in the hospital I brought this afghan in so our room could have some color.  While I pumped milk I'd just sit and stare at all the pretty shades of blue on it.  I wanted it around when I bring our newest baby home.  

I really like how I was able to put my jewelry box under this pretty picture.  I bought the picture at DI years ago and I just love looking at it.  I also love the fact that the girls can't reach anything on top of this dresser.  In our old bedroom layout they could.  

 And while we are looking at things I love here is a little grouping of pictures that turned out really nice.  I've pretty much run out of wall space for single pictures so I started double and triple hanging them.  I really like how they look.

And here is the rest of my bedroom. I'm kind of embarrassed by how busy this wall is, but hey all this stuff had to go somewhere.  The nice thing is that I can do my craft thing while the girls are asleep and when they wake up I can just shut the door on my mess.  

 Here is my room from another angle.  Check out all my high heeled shoes that I am saving for a day in the distant future when I'm not carrying toddlers and babies everywhere.

 And finally one last shot of my bed. Hopefully I find the drywall hooks soon because I miss the picture that hangs up above my bed.

So was the move worth it?  Yes it totally was.  We were able to get lots of cool new features like the hardwood looking linoleum and the tile in the bathroom.  We are now more social with our neighbors.  The girls can play outside easily.  We were able to rearrange our rooms so they are laid out better.  And we were able to de-junk a little bit as we unpacked.  So worth it!

Pictures from the move

As of today I think we are officially moved in and unpacked!  That means it only took about 6 weeks from when I first thought about moving until it was completed.  This whole process has reminded me of the book the Secret of Nimh.  The whole book gets kicked off by the need to move Mrs Frisby's house 3 feet to the lea side of the stone.  In my case it was the need to move 30 feet to a downstairs apartment.


I didn't even think about moving apartments until February 7th - which happened to be my birthday.  I'd brought the girls down the stairs and had them all strapped into their strollers and ready for a walk.  My neighbor walked by and we exchanged a little bit of small talk.  She was about to go into her apartment when she paused and said, "you know, you should try to see if you can get this apartment when I move out at the end of the month."  And my first response was, "No, if I'm going to go to all the trouble of moving I'd want to actually move."

Yet I couldn't get her suggestion out of my head.  I really couldn't imagine how I could handle three babies and stairs - I could barely handle two.  So that night I talked it over with Brandon.  He was a little indifferent. I told him he could try to take the girls on a walk all by himself, and that might make up his mind. He didn't need to do that to see that being downstairs would be much easier for me.  Next I called up the property manager and talked to her about it.  I have to stop and say that I have one of the best property managers in the world.  At my last job I worked with about 100 property managers and most of them were complete ding-bats.  The one where I live is very on top of her job, and so wonderful to work with. Anyway, she said the transfer wouldn't be a problem.

We started packing on February 25th, and then did the official move the following weekend.  I have to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone that helped.  Thank you Deborah and Anna for helping pre-clean my new apartment.  Thank you Melody, Karen, Sister Snow, and Sister Davis for helping clean the old one.  Thank you Diane and Brother Hurley for babysitting the girls during the furniture moving part of the move.  Thank you Steve, Jacque, Mike, Joseph, Rob, Daniel, Alex, Caleb, and George for moving everything - and for being patient with me when I told you EXACTLY where something needed to go.  And thank you Mildred and Teri for making us dinner the day of the move.

Here are some pictures from the process.  Lydia loved playing in the little maze that the shelves created when Brandon laid them on the floor.

 The day of the big move the girls were into everything!  You can see that Lydia found her Daddy's drill bit holders.  Charlotte found the rubbing alcohol and peroxide.  She was carrying them around in a basket.

 I was really glad that I'd made arrangements for the girls to be babysat at our Sr Missionary couple's house - especially when the girls discovered a box of tampons.

 Charlotte carried them all over the house right up until I took her out to the car.

With the girls out of the way it was easy to get things moved.  It was also easy because we didn't have to worry about loading a moving van.  I stationed myself downstairs and told the men where I wanted the furniture and boxes to go.  Within two hours everything had been moved.  I picked the girls up from the babysitters and put them right to bed in their new room.  They didn't seem to mind the change at all.  I took a nap too.

Then it was time to start unpacking.  Just unpacking all the books emptied so many boxes.  We worked hard and got about 60% unpacked that day.  Our friends from the branch provided us with dinner so we didn't have to worry about that.  I'm glad they offered to bring us dinner because our kitchen was full of boxes.

 On Monday we took care of some final things in the old apartment.  I love this picture of Lydia trying to help Brandon replace the light fixture.

 Both girls helped me clean the old apt.  Here they are sweeping.  The biggest help on Monday was from my visiting teacher, Karen.  She spent about 2 hours wiping down all the kitchen cupboards, washing the windows, dusting the blinds, and vacuuming the patio of my old apt.  And then she still asked me when she could come do visiting teaching for the month.

Down in our new apt things have taken some time to get completely done.  I felt like I was living in one of those cumulative stories.  I needed to unpack the box in the bedroom, to find the screws, to put up the shelf, to set the stuff, so I could unpack the box on the counter.  It didn't help that the army decided to do the whole enlistment process for Brandon right after we moved.  Or that Brandon seemed to have a whole bunch of other commitments that prevented him from doing the things I needed him to do.  But gradually we found time.  Here is Lydia helping clean off the vacuum brush.  (If her Daddy is fixing something she has to watch and help)

 So despite being busy, being sick, and having needy babies we have gradually put the apartment together in less than 3 weeks from moving day.  Next I'll have pictures of how it looks.