Dancing with the Normal People

Okay. This picture has nothing to do with the post. But I still like it. Let me just put that out there.

The other thing I want to say is: If they ever have a show called "Dancing with the Normal People", I am in.

The glitz. The glamor. The gaiety.

Every time we watch Dancing with the Stars, I just imagine myself twirling around that floor. Accepting the judges praises with dignity and poise. Spouting off witty one liners, like I was made to entertain. If America knew who I was-- I would rock that show. Mirror ball trophy, here I come. "Dance experience?" they ask. I am exclusively a living room diva! (Except for one unfortunate year of ballet at the age of five.)

Unfortunately, I'd rather shoot myself in the foot than be famous.... so we're really going to have to hope for a new show, because I'll never be a star. So, America, rally with me. Who will be my co-contestants on Dancing with the Normal People?

I love feeding my babies solid foods. There's just something unifying about sharing a meal with someone. Including your own child. Charlotte is a fan so far. We had watermelon last night. For a six month old, she did pretty good. This is Charlotte's first time feeding herself ever. All of the other foods I've given her aren't very self-feeding friendly. Oatmeal? I tried that. She just dumped the bowl all over herself. Oh yeah. That's why Ella used to have to eat straight off her tray. We weren't just uncouth, we were avoiding food disaster. It'll be nice when Charlie's ready for finger foods, but for now, she just gets the mashed up version of whatever single ingredient food we have at the meal. (Usually the vegetable. The watermelon was officially dessert, though.) I was so into baby foods with Ella. I made purees and froze them, and defrosted them (sans microwave) dutifully to eat exactly one hour after breastfeeding, so as not to interfere with her appetite for the good stuff (breastmilk). I introduced one new food every three days for MONTHS. No more of that. She eats when the rest of us are hungry. Honestly, she really doesn't get enough to interfere. And since we have a varied diet, she basically gets three new foods a day. Don't tell Dr. Sears.

My roommates are going to love this. Ella has recently decided to take off her pajamas after we put her to bed. So she sleeps in the (mostly) nude. (Yep, she's mine.) But, get this. She puts her pajamas away, in her top drawer. Yes. She strips, and then puts her clothes away, in the middle of the night. Paul and I don't even put our clothes away when we are wide awake. Somehow, Kate imbibed some of her clean-freak-ness into my genetic code when we lived together all those years ago. Thanks, Kate.

Ella had a late afternoon meltdown at Target today. So what did I do? I called my friend and asked if she would babysit. And then I drove straight to her house, fed my baby, and left my kids there. IT WAS GLORIOUS! Paul and I got home about the same time, when I surprised him with the news. Take out in the comfort of our own home was just what I needed. My little Char is not sleeping well, and I have felt a bit on the edge (of sanity, you know). I am rejuvenated. No sleep required. (Well, I will require sleep, but this evening did the trick without it. But sleep would still be good. Excellent, actually. Just keep that in mind, cyberspace.)

That's a wrap.

Late is better than never.

Well, Sunday morning, we squeezed Charlotte into an (almost) thirty year old blessing gown. (Suck it in, Charlie!) And Paul gave her a name and a blessing. She's only five and a half months old. I was worried Charlotte would kind of flip out, you know, being surrounded by men in a big circle could be intimidating, but Archie said it was the only blessing circle that he's ever been in where the baby was playing with the ties of all the men in the circle. Cute.

We left our camera charger in Utah.

And that's why I'm still posting vacation photos.

It's sad because, I might have been able to get a video of Ella singing "Happy Birthday, dear Dadd'n". Which she has been singing on and off since I taught it to her on Tuesday. (Yes, Paul is the big Two-Nine.) (But I like to tell people he is thirty, like I accidentally forgot.) (Because it makes him mad.) (He doesn't get that thirty is the new twenty.) My original plan was for her to sing just the last word in each phrase, like she does most other songs. But, I failed to account for the fact that it basically has the same lyrics in each phrase, so she picked it up pretty quickly. So that was fun. Another "trick" for Paul to try to get her to do to impress the family. Which she, no doubt, will refuse to perform on command. Kids these days.

I do love this picture, though. The morning after we arrived in Utah, the first thing Paul did was pull out the golf clubs and hollow golf balls out of grandma's garage. (Which wait for him there, no matter how long it's been since we've visited.) And started hitting balls accross the yard.

I watched him from inside, and watched my sweet daughter try her luck with a golf club of her own, and it just felt like home. Grandma's house is one of those few places that seems to stand still in time. We can change, and grow, and have crazy amounts of babies, and still know that there are cookies in the freezer, and ham and cheese in the fridge. We can invite friends over for game night, and know that Grandma will stay up with us all hours of the night playing something she'd never even heard of until that day. We can all sit around talking for hours, or just sit reading our own books companionably. We have Sunday dinner, and gather in the kitchen to clean up, which for some reason, is one of my favorite times. Maybe because it was in that kitchen, doing those dishes, that I first knew that I belonged to the Christensens, the same way I belong to my own family. It was a nice vacation.

Life is going on about as usual here. Paul still studies more than I would like. But, I'm just being selfish. He's doing great in school, and we are hoping to hear if we have an offer from at&t this week. Wish us luck!

Home again, home again...

It's nice to be home. We are all adjusting back from a looooooong day of driving on Saturday. We left at 4 am, and rolled in to College Station at 3:30 am. Yeah. It was a long drive. We did lose two hours due to time zones, so it was more like 22 hours on the road, rather than the 24 that it seems. Still a long time.

I just love our family. This trip we visited with Paul's family almost exclusively, but after five years of marriage (and several years of dating before that), they are my family, too. In fact, the trip was my idea. Paul fought me on it for a while. (And can you blame him? We probably logged 60 hours of driving time over the last two and a half weeks.) But I just cannot bear the thought of my girls not knowing our sweet family. Even though they might be too little to notice.

Arizona was hot. But we mostly stayed inside, with the occasional early morning or late afternoon swim. Ella calls Carolyn "Aunt Cee-Cee", She even puts the 'aunt' on the front, which is cute. It became clear early on that 'Carolyn' was too difficult for Ella's unpracticed tongue. It worked out well.

Carolyn swears that she will be the strict aunt, but I just have to laugh, because I don't know how she will ever be anything except "Fun Aunt Carolyn". The first thing she did was paint Ella's toenails hot pink. Ella spent the whole trip showing off her toenails. Ah well, time will tell. But I have my money on "Fun Aunt Carolyn" rather than "Boring and Rule-Abiding Aunt Carolyn".

A little of this and a little of that.

Lots of time in the car. Imagine our surprise when Charlotte was thrilled that Ella climbed up on her lap.

A little sight seeing with Grandma Christensen. How we love visiting her. The comfort of Grandma's house is as good as ever.

A little crawling. The strength is there. The coordination is not.

A lot of visiting. Enjoying the friendship of roommates, family, and friends. Once a room-ie, always a room-ie.

A lot of playing. Still loves balls.

Cousins

Because my and Paul's brothers and sisters have not been so accomodating when it comes to creating cousins for our children to play with, it was really fun to see Ella playing with her second cousins, Jed and Giovanna. Yea for family! We are having a marvelous time here in Utah. The wedding was magnificent. And Sunday we had a lovely family dinner with the Christensen clan. We are looking forward to a fun week visiting with friends and family.

Also of note, Charlotte is beginning to crawl. Mostly backwards, but she did somehow go forward the other day when I wasn't looking. She also got her first tooth. And grabs any food within reach, because she is clearly ready for solids before I am. Ella began using her first preposition: the word "by". As in, "Tee-tee by bush?" Yes. I let her go outside once in her whole life and this is what happens. Ah well, she is telling us when she has to go a lot more often now... in hopes that she will be able to go "by bush".

How did this even happen?

Ella is two. Twenty-five months actually. And I never posted birthday pictures. Or a sweet little list of all the things she does that are cute. Mostly because I'm a bad mom.

In spite of that, she is basically just the most beautiful, wonderful girl. When Laurel came out for Ella's birth, she told Hunter that Ella was "so sweet". And Hunter asked, "How can you even know that?" And I don't know how much you can know about a newborn, I imagine they are all sweet. But sweet is the word that people use most often to describe Ella. Her nursery leaders, her Mother's Day Out teachers, friends who babysit for us. She is truly sweet.

Right now she is upstairs singing to "Beebee Da-ee" (Baby Charlie) because she woke up from her nap and started fussing. So Ella ran up to comfort her. Again, because I'm a bad mom. Or maybe I'm just a really good delegator.

Alright, I just heard her say "Eat, Baby, Eat." I have to go.

Sisters.

Mi-Ming

Happy Saturday! Paul made us a yummy breakfast this morning, and as we finished up Ella looked at him and asked, "Dadd'n mi-ming?" (Mi-ming = Swimming, ask me how long that took to figure out. Weeks. She talked about swimming for weeks without me even remotely understanding what she meant.) Mi-ming is a question that is asked at least three times a day, and invariably after dinner.

This is because, four times out of five, we go swimming after dinner. And at least twice a week Ella and Charlotte and I go while Paul is at work. Plus once or twice on Saturdays. And Ella loves it. Sometimes we put a floatie on her, and sometimes not. Regardless of her floatation devices, she fearlessly and tirelessly explores the pool.

So much fun.