Overheard

Ella:  Dad, dance with me!

Paul: Okay!

Ella: Here, put this on.  [Handing him a tutu.]

Paul:  Ummmm...

Ella won out in the end.  The only acceptable dance is one in which the dancer is wearing a tutu.  I don't know where she got that from, as I have never exposed her to ballet, or any form of tutu etiquette (I think of them more as costumes than dance attire), but thanks to Sudie, she has two tutus, so there can always be a pas de deux.

There are just not enough hours in the day.

I have such high hopes for my life. I want to give my children hours each day to explore nature, eat nutritionally rich meals, start a business, learn Chinese, read the twelve books that I currently have checked out from the library, allow the girls to play alone, let the girls learn to play with others, teach the girls to work hard along side their mother, and spend meaningful one on one time with each of my children, sew any of the seven projects that are currently percolating in my head, study the gospel, share the gospel, repot four of my houseplants, plant a vegetable garden (location TBD), blog... and sleep.

Is anyone else feeling a bit opressed by the constraints of mortality?

Dallas Top Ten

Well, in case you were wondering.  Our camera cord is MIA.  So we have a few current phone photos and lots of vacation photos.  I'm going with vacation, if you can't tell.  Can you see the Christensen resemblance?  I think Char and Grandpa Jeff may share some genetic code.

Now that we have lived in Dallas for three weeks, I thought I would give you a little taste of what our life holds.  The first three weeks in any new home can be a little tenuous, but overall, it's been a positive experience.

The Best of our First Weeks in Dallas:

10 - The weather.  Glorious.  A few 'off' days where it's been down in the low sixties, but generally we have spent these glorious days in the seventies.  Springtime is so hopeful, isn't it?  The trees in our neighborhood have just started blossoming.  It is lovely.

9 - Three Bedrooms.  Ah, sweet bliss.  Each girl can sleep without waking the other.  One day, they will learn to share and sleep in the same space.  But today is not that day.

8 - Our Apartment Complex's Five Acre Park - Complete with a pond and ducks and a nice trail.  It's no Yellowstone, but it is sure convenient to have something close by.

7 - The Stuff Purge - It continues.  Paul and I have donated three LARGE boxes already, and this weekend promises to turn up more stuff that is no longer deserving of our resources.  One day I'll be a minimalist.  Right now I feel so overwhelmed by stuff I feel like a faker, but I am at least trying.  And it feels good to set it free.  The upside of all this is, I have bought very few things since we moved in.

6 - Our very active ward - It's a two-way relationship.  We have attended Ward Temple Night, Ultimate Frisbee (Paul), Choir, Knitting Club (Jess), a Fireside, had people over for dinner, I taught Relief Society last week, subbed in Nursery yesterday, and we're speaking next week.  It's nice to feel involved so quickly.

5 - I now officially have two toddlers.  One prefers to crawl, but the walking to crawling ratio is slowly shifting.  It's fun having two toddlers.  I like toddlers.  Maybe even more than babies.  Maybe.  But I like it all when they belong to me.

4 - Hope.  We're still in the honeymoon phase of living here.  Who will our friends be?  How will we fill our time?  What callings will we have?  It's fun to dream.  We're so idealistic about the future.

3 - A paycheck.  It's official.  We make money.

2 - Houston.  It's still close enough for a weekend trip.  I did it last weekend and the girls were rock stars about the whole thing.  So fun to be close enough to just go down for my sister's birthday.

1 - We are NORMAL again!  As much fun as it was to have Paul around all the time... it's really nice to get back to the way things were.  We miss him, in a lot of ways, especially the girls, they are not used to waiting for attention, but we miss him in a good way.

My picture is blurry.

But it's Char's fault.  She won't stop moving.  Ever.

A sweet little girl at church asked if she could change Char's diaper.

"Sure!  Take her away!"

It was kind of traumatic for the poor girl, because I forgot to tell her that often Char screams bloody murder when she is having her diaper changed because she hates laying still.

I tried to console her with this information post-diaper change, and the girl's sister asked, "Well, if she hates laying down so much, how does she ever fall asleep?"

"We wrap her in a blanket really tight so she can't move," was my truthful response.

At what point does a swaddle become a straight-jacket?