Days 1 and 2 without John

Well, we're still here and we even went to church. My mom was very surprised. (Of course we went to church!! If John can do it, I guess I have no excuse.) Not on time, but who's counting really? The girls were very well behaved for the most part. They sat quietly on the couch in the foyer during sacrament meeting and they were very good. I don't know if they would have lasted the whole time, but since we were about 25 minutes late, they lasted. They were getting a little fidgety at the end. We had a few escapees at the end of church and Ruth actually got lost for a few minutes, but we all ended up home and I wasn't in a totally bad, frustrated mood so I counted it a success.

We had lunch and they all took naps, including me and then our home teachers came over. They were very nice and agreed to take the garbage cans out for me so that's good. Then we had dinner, visited with Missy and Steve for a few minutes and then the girls went to bed. I feel like it went pretty well. There were the usual tantrums and breakdowns but nothing out of the ordinary. Our dinner was less spectacular than if John had been here (we had frozen pizza, fruit salad, toast, and brownies from our home teachers) but that's to be expected. I can cook, I just don't feel like it when I'm pregnant.

Yesterday we spent most of the day with my parents. The girls picked up the whole house so they could watch Legion of Super Heros. And then we went up to see my parents. The girls had lots of fun. They watched lots of shows and Grandma fixed one of her catered to kids meals of hot dogs, fish sticks, macaroni and cheese and green beans. She always just asks them what they want to eat and they always end up with about the same thing. But it is always good. My sister Heather also showed up with her family and it was fun to see them. She brought me a whole bunch of baby boy clothes that are almost brand new. A lot still have the tags on them. A friend of hers gave them to her to give to us. Very nice. (Her friend said she misplaced the clothes when her baby was still too small and then found them after he was too big. Odd, but I got some great clothes out of it.)

After we came home last night, we did baths, which almost did me in. Lily pooped in the bath and Mary and Emma threw tantrums. But every one eventually got in their pajamas and went to bed so it all ended well.

The girls have been really good for me so I can't complain. I haven't felt really stressed out yet so that's definitely a blessing. We miss John and can't wait for him to get home though.

My favorite thing John has ever won

About 3-4 years ago John won a 20 gig ipod at a business conference. Now when he brought it home, I was happy for him but not really that enthused for myself. I didn't really appreciate the digital music thing so it seemed kind of pointless. John spent a lot of time telling me how cool it was and that we could put all of our music on it, etc. He's a good salesman but I still wasn't buying. Then we decided we were going to drive to Buffalo that next summer and he started lobbying to buy a car adapter so we could put all our music on the ipod and then not take the tons of cds that we usually took on our trip to keep the kids amused. The adapter was like $100 which was more than I thought we should pay, but John was so excited that I eventually gave in, and tried to act excited too.

Well so we got the adapter, ripped all the cd's, and went on our trip. And I have to say that I LOVED IT!! We didn't have to mess with cd's. We could put it on shuffle and get a good mix of kid's songs and our music, and even some conference talks and BYU devotionals. It was the coolest thing ever. And it was fun to not know what was coming up next, like on the radio, but still know that you were going to like whatever did come up. And the kids got enough of their music to keep them happy and entertained without driving us crazy. It was great!!

Ever since then I've kind of monopolized the ipod. Poor John doesn't get to use it very often because I keep it in my purse to use whenever I'm driving. In fact, some times if the kids are driving me crazy, I pack the kids into the car, tell them to be quiet, and drive around listening to the soothing sounds of the ipod. I even made John buy me an ihome alarm clock so I can listen to the ipod in my bedroom. I have also since acquired an ipod shuffle (that John won at another business conference) and a regular mp3 player (because the library has a service where you can download books on tape for free, but it is not compatible with the ipod). I also have speakers in just about every room that I can plug my gadgets into and a little exercise armband. I guess you could say that I am 100% converted.

Just today John downloaded all the church music into the ipod so that it can go into our shuffle mix. I'm so excited because I've wanted to do it for a while. I probably wouldn't be as excited about these things if I didn't have John backing me up as technical support, but I do so I am.

I seriously love ipods and mp3 players (and their car adapters) and would recommend them to anyone, especially those with kids. There you go. There is my sales pitch for the day. Thanks John for winning us such great stuff. And I guess, as usual, John was right.

Goals update

1. Friday night couples: This has been on hiatus for a while, what with my trip and March Madness and John's trip next week. We'll start up again in April.

2. Scripture Mastery: The girls are up to 2Ne 2:27, which is a little longer but I'm amazed how Kate and Mary are catching on. I think they must practice with each other at night. Mary would desperately like to beat Kate in memorizing this one, but I don't think it is going to happen. Alas, at least it is good motivation for her. The little girls are coming right along too. They really get into it, but it is a little harder for them. Ruth has gotten so that if she is tired she'll say, No scriptures just my song. I'm all right with that. We say them every night as a family anyway so she's really not missing out and she's still learning them really well. I also just had John download some free scripture mastery songs to put in the ipod. I think the girls will get a kick out of them. Musically speaking, they're not the best things ever, but the girls will be excited, just judging from the fact that they made me listen to the Books in the Book of Mormon song like 50 times the other day, just because they knew all the words (we had sung it for our hymn of the week a few weeks before).

3. Exercising: John put my exerciser away while I was on my trip, but then very kindly found me a new spot when I asked about it when I got home. I've done it maybe twice this week, but I have to say that it makes me feel great so I'm going to try to be lots better.

4. Finish projects: I went up to my mom's and at least cut out my quilt block for the month and hers too. I still need to sew it but I'm getting there. I also worked on my frog book for Ruth so I'm taking baby steps toward getting something done.

5. Go to bed earlier: I've kind of given up on this goal because I can only sleep so long on one side before my leg goes numb, and so the earlier I go to bed, the longer I struggle so it seems more time efficient to just stay up and get something done--hoping that I actually do something.

6. Family indexing: I've still been doing it everyday and now they're doing state censuses. Some of them have been kind of hard, but I still get a lot of sense of accomplishment from doing them. They say that they are now indexing about a million names a day. Amazing!!!

7. Surprise gift for John: I have also been working on this daily. I've upped my amount that I do per day because I'm afraid that it is not going to get done on time. Hopefully it will.

8. Positive kid moments: None, not that I haven't had any, I just haven't been recording them all that well. I need to work on the whole journal thing a little.

What does he do all day?

About a month ago, as I was driving Emma home from her preschool, out of the blue, she says, "I think dad should get a job, mom." My response was, "Doesn't dad have a job, Emma?" "No." This made me curious so I started asking questions about what she considered a job, where she thought we got all of our money, things like that. I ended by telling her that yes, dad did have a job and if he didn't, we wouldn't have a house or any food. I found it hilarious. I think it must have stemmed from something they had talked about at school.

A couple of weeks later, just to confirm that I'd gotten my point across in the earlier conversation, I asked Emma if she thought dad had a job. "No," she said.
"Well, where does he go every day then?"
"Oh he goes to work."
"Work isn't a job?"
"No"
Trying to make sense of Emma thinking I said, "Do you have to help people to have a job?" "Yea, all dad does is play on his computer."
"Work and job is the same thing Emma."
"Oh, " in a totally surprised voice.

I laughed. I asked her again today if dad had a job. She kind of laughed and said yes. It was at his work. I think she was just humoring me.

The Big Vacation

John so kindly let me go on a vacation by myself. He's trying to keep me from going crazy and I appreciate it. I am now in Oklahoma with my older sister Michelle visiting my little brother John and his family. It has been really fun and relaxing.

We got here on Wednesday afternoon and have been having fun ever since. My brother lives in Moore, OK, a suburb of Oklahoma City and he has a beautiful house there. When we got here his wife Jani picked us up and had made up a room for us complete with lotion and chocolates on the pillows. It has been great. Both John and Jani are great cooks and we've had some great food.

We've also done a lot of shopping. Not many people have brothers who love to shop but we do. I found some great OU clothes and some baby clothes. Mostly I just love to walk and around and chat with my brother.

I've also gotten to work a lot on my projects and do a lot of reading--all things I have a hard time doing at home. I've also gotten to play games, watch movies and have fun with John's two little boys. Now I have a taste of what a having a boy in the house will feel like. It has made me even more excited for our little boy.

Anyway, it has been great and I am so grateful that John suggested it. If you can believe it, the trip was John's idea. It has been great to have a break and I think the girls have enjoyed spending time with their dad. He is a great husband and a great dad and I don't know what I'd do without him. I love him. Hopefully he's still alive and sane when I get home.