The Joy of the Season

The past few weeks have been crazy, as usual. I don't know why I continue to be amazed by this. When Aly was three and I had only two children, I had a friend tell me that even though you think life will be easier once your kids start school, it only gets crazier. I should have listened. But it's a good crazy and I guess I should just embrace this as the new normal. Amidst all the busyness, time with my family continues to be the highlight for me. Her is a picture of the girls decorating the Christmas tree (As we were taking down the decorations today, I realized I went a little overboard decorating when we are going out of town for the holidays!) Notice Kate wearing the stocking ornament on her feet.

Here we are in front of the Christmas tree. We started the tradition in our family of watching Christmas movies with Hot chocolate and sleeping in front of the tree.

Here is Kate wearing her new pink boots while opening a gift. . . she's all about the footwear these days. The other day Chris caught Kate singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" into the toilet bowl. It must have great acoustics down there. Of course, I wouldn't know because I've never sung into a toilet bowl. . . okay, so maybe I have, but I was cleaning it okay, not just hanging out there for fun!

Here's me with a couple of my presents. At the girl's school they had a "Penguinn Shoppe" where the kids could buy inexpensive gifts for their family members. It was so cute to see how excited they were to pick things out for us. I got a silk rose from Aly and a #1 Mom pen from Analise. Too cute. The rest of my life has been consumed with primary (of course), speaking in church, and cooking. I'm not a big baker, but for some reason this year I got sucked into 4 pumpkin pies, 3 pans of brownies, 2 batches of PB/Hershey kiss cookies, and a partridge in a pear tree. The insane thing is that it all got eaten.

Analise's class put on a play, "The Littlest Christmas Tree" and it was fun to watch. Analise got to be a cardinal. Analise continues to amaze me. She told me recently that she and her friends take turns saying a prayer on their food before they eat lunch. She is such a good example (well, most of the time.)

Aly sang fabulously in her Christmas Choral Concerts. She is a natural performer and didn't even get nervous when singing her solo in French. Aly is also loving being 8 years old and being able to attend Activity Days at church. Man! When did my little girl get so big? Literally - she has now started borrowing some of my clothes and we have the same sock size. Things are going to get really interesting when she starts hand-me-downing clothes to me. I'll get to be "hip" again. :)

And as for Chris, he has been working turbo time to finish this quarter and get our family set to go home for Christmas. Once his finals/papers/projects were all done he jumped right in to demolishing our garden, registering the van, updating the 72 hour kits, renewing the scouting charter, and helping me pack and clean up the house. In the past few days as we've been trying to prepare for the trek to Utah, we've discovered that a couple of lugnuts were missing on one of our tires, and today we discovered a leak in our hot water heater. It's crazy how these things always come about at the last minute, but I consider it a huge blessing that we discovered these things before we left so that we don't have to deal with losing a tire while crossing the mountains in the middle of the night and we won't come home to a soggy, sauna house. Wherever and however you will be spending your holidays, we hope that it is full of peace and joy. (That was my church talk topic - The Blessings of Peace - and it was very helpful for me to regain perspective during this busy time of year.) See you all in a few weeks!

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Okay, so I guess I just took a whole month off of my blog. I don't know why I keep thinking that things will slow down - especially around the holidays. This is probably going to be another novel about the happenings of the O'Gwin Clan. So here we go. First of all you'll see that we finally got some corn on the cob! It never quite recovered after being blown over and replanted, so most of the ears are only like 3" long. But it still tasted yummy!

This time we're going to start with . . . ME! The primary program is finally done - hooray! - and it went very well. The kids sang their hearts out and only a couple of the Sunbeams were unintelligible because they were eating the mike. The only crazy thing was that a few people were sick and we ended up going 15 minutes under and so I got up and gave an impromptu bearing of my testimony to fill up some time. I'm not opposed to bearing my testimony, but I think that next year I'll try to make the program a little longer. :) Everyone keeps asking me if I feel so much better now that the program is over and I am like, "Not really." I think I'll feel better once I get everything squared away for the new year - there's 10 new sunbeams coming in, teachers to call, classrooms to assign, etc. Hopefully we can take a little breather in January, but I'm not holding my breath. Life hasn't been all primary though. I went out with a group of ladies from the ward and saw New Moon. Everyone was just raving about how much better the acting was than the first one . . . I guess I don't remember the first one very well. There were a whole bunch of teenage girls screaming down in the front, which was hilarious. It was a fun movie though and a fun night out - I'm glad I went. But I must say I've also been on a couple of dates with Chris this month - much better than a girl's night out! Plus we have dates at our house reading or watching "V". That's the new series we've gotten into off of itunes. And speaking of Chris, I also spent a large portion of the Thanksgiving Holiday editing his 120 page thesis. Which leads me to his exciting news: Chris submitted his thesis yesterday!! Hooray! Go Chris! (I just can't stop the cheerleader in me from coming out, no matter how hard I try.) His paper was excellent and Chris put a lot of himself into it (and a lot of hours at the library!). He definitely deserves and A. Chris has about a week and a half more of stress this quarter and then he can relax a little bit over the holidays. No one deserves it more.
Okay, so now let's talk about the kids. I was able to go to the girl's parent teacher conferences this month and it was very nice to hear how much the teachers like my girls. Having them well adjusted in school is such a load off, I can't even tell you. Lise even told me over Thanksgiving that she doesn't like being out of school because she misses Mrs. Shugars. She's a cutie. Anyhoo, over the craziness that was going on during Halloween (though I can't remember exactly what that was at the moment), I totally fell off the "good mommy bandwagon" and didn't make it to any of the school's Halloween celebrations: parade, class parties, pumpkin patch field trip, or dance. So a couple of weeks ago Lise said to me, "Mom, next time all the parents get to come to something, will you please come?" It nearly broke my heart and I vowed to do my best to attend the girl's special days at school. So I went with Aly's class on their field trip to the lighthouse, museum, and butterfly sanctuary. It was a lot of fun. I also went to Analise's Thanksgiving Feast they had in their classroom where they recited some poems and sang some songs - very cute.

Aly has had a very exciting month (as Novembers usually are for her). First of all, she made the Christmas Chorus Group at school that will be performing in an assembly and at various rest homes and what not in the area. She has been practicing hard and even gets to sing her french Christmas song, "Petit Papa Noel", by herself! The main event for Aly, however, was her birthday. First of all, this was a special birthday for Aly because she turned 8, so she gets to be baptized! For her party, she made it low stress for me, which was extremely kind, by saying that all she wanted was to take her friends swimming at the community pool and back to the house for brownies and ice cream. And she said she didn't even need presents! What a sweetheart. Thanks for reducing my stress, Aly!

And finally, Thanksgiving. We had another family over which was awesome because it reduced the cooking in half. They aren't big turkey people (the wife is from Japan), so they brought over this yummy steak. We did have turkey too, just more food to stuff our faces with. We hung out and played games and then one of our neighbors invited everyone over for desserts later in the evening. It was a very relaxing day, which was nice. And I would like to say that I was most grateful to Chris who helped with the turkeys and cutting up the apples for the apple pies. He helped keep my stress to a bare minimum so that I was able to enjoy the day with my family. Aly was a huge help peeling vegetables as well and Analise helped by playing with Kate to keep her out of the area. I am truly blessed with a wonderful family. I love you guys!

Happy Hula Wieners!

So, when I was younger I had a friend who lived in New York. One day she sent me a card in the mail with a picture of two hot dogs with grass skirts around them on the front. Inside it read, "Happy Hula-wieners!" My mom and I laughed so hard we cried and it has been a Halloween inside joke between us ever since. So Happy Hula-Wieners everybody! I hope you had a good one! I've got two Halloween related stories for you. First of all, the Halloween Candy Bandits. I had purchased our Halloween candy about a month ago and was storing it in our garage with our food storage. Well, one night the garage door didn't get closed. The next morning I woke up to a discovery - Raccoons like Butterfingers! Every bag of candy was opened and there was one of each type of candy opened, but all of the Butterfingers were gone. Craziness. I'm just grateful they didn't get into any of the food storage! The second story occurred last night after we put the girls in bed. I went to put a hair clip on the counter and saw that one of the girls had left one of their spider rings on the counter . . . except it wasn't a ring! Augh! I almost grabbed the thing!! Here are my little "ghouls" on Halloween. Aly was Hannah Montana, of course, Lise was a Fairy-Princess-Butterfly thingy, and Kate was a pink dragon. Aly and Lise got to wear their costumes to school so they actually wore their costumes two days in a row - lucky ducks! There have been tons and tons of festivities over here. Chris and I have been asking ourselves, "Is Halloween the new Christmas?" There were festivities up the ying-yang and so we had to decide what to go to. At school the girls had class parties, a parade, and a dance - yes, a dance in elementary school. It was full of the funky chicken and a bunch of Hannah Montana Songs that Aly lip synced to beautifully.
We hit our ward's trunk or treat/chili cook-off and then came back to our house for more trick-or-treating. After the girls were done and our candy was all gone I had them empty out their candy and put anything they didn't like (or that Aly couldn't have with her braces) into a bowl and then we gave that out the rest of the night. It was a very nice system. No bit-o-honeys, sour patch kids, or fireballs left in the bottom of our candy buckets this year, nosiree. :)

Besides Halloween, we have stayed as busy as ever with doctor's appointments/Ortho appointments, visiting teaching, sharing time, scout camps, etc. I have recommitted myself to exercising (again) and have actually found a buddy to go walking around the neighborhood with, which will definitely improve my chances of staying with it. Last week was the book fair at school, and, well, children's books are one of my weaknesses - enough said. Chris and I were able to go on a date, which was a well needed break from my day-to-day running around. We ended up in a bookstore on our date - another dangerous thing, since Chris loves books like I do. If only we had time to read them . . .

Today was our first Primary Program Practice. For some crazy, unknown reason, I am totally not stressed about the program. I think my counselors are more worried about it than I am; a first, since I usually feel that I'm the one stressed over everything. It must be a blessing from Heavenly Father that I am feeling so calm, and I need to enjoy it for what it is. I think the kids will do the best that they can, if they don't memorize their parts it's not the end of the world, there will be some funny mishaps that everyone will think is darling/hilarious, and it will all be over in an hour and ten minutes. As Aly would say, "easy peasy, mac 'n' cheesy". No worries, right?

Another Halloween activity that I forgot to mention was that Chris took Aly on an awesome hike that he had done with the scouts. Chris said Aly did better than some of the scouts! It looks like it was gorgeous!

This is Aly sitting on a Redwood tree stump that was taller than Chris. Dang! When do I get a hiking date?

Besides hiking, Aly also tried out for the Holiday Chorus Group at her school this last week. I really hope she makes it - she would be awesome! Aly is still loving school, continues to make more and more friends, likes being outside to build forts, ride bikes, climb trees, and swinging from a rope swing in our backyard, and has recently become a little bookworm. She has to read out loud to me for 20 minutes every day and it is so neat to see how she is advancing and grasping the joy of reading. I love it! Oh, one more thing that I love is a little saying/chant that Aly brought home from school that goes like this, "you get what you get, and you don't throw a fit!" It is a lovely saying that comes in quite handy at our house.

Analise has been blossoming in Kindergarten as well. She is now sounding out words and reading! It is awesome! She is also an art genius, according to one of the substitutes she had in school. It's amazing though, as your kids get smarter, how much dumber they think you are. Like, how many years have I been telling Lise to wash her hands, but suddenly she learns it in school, and now it's "really important" and she's always reminding me to do it. Or, the other day, I was cleaning ear wax out of my ear with a Q-tip and Lise told me, "mom, we learned in school that you're not supposed to put things in your ears." Thanks, Lise. Lise has all-of-the-sudden turned into a comedian at the dinner table with knock knock jokes as well. She thinks that she is hilarious and will say, "Now this is gonna be good" and then say something like the following:

-knock, knock

-who's there?

-pineapple

-pineapple who?

-pineapple curly!! (fits of laughter)

-Get it? It's like a curly pineapple?!? (Um, sure we get it, Lise)

Lise is also very thoughtful. Ever since President Monson's talk in conference we have started asking "What did you do for someone else today?" at the dinner table. Lise is always so excited about this and is usually the one who reminds us to do it. She is always giving Kate the prizes that she earns at school or making pictures or crafts for her sisters. One day she even told us that she spent all recess picking up trash to make the playground clean. She is such a sweetie. Oh, and if you're wondering about the picture, there was face painting at a birthday party Lise went to and she chose to be a pink kitty.
Kate has also caught the excitement of being helpful - as long as it's convenient for her. She loves to help set the table and can say the food prayer by herself, which she will do even without being asked. One night after she did this, Chris sarcastically said, "Kate, would you like to say the prayer?" to which she replied, "I just barely did, Dad!" Kate has recently discovered that she likes puzzles (which has been a good discovery for me in keeping her reverent at church as well!), loves play-doh, likes going for walks, being outside, and is getting the hang of the bouncy ball. She still likes pretending she is a cat/dog most of the time and especially enjoys howling (especially into cups where she can hear herself better, even sacrament cups) and licking everyone's clothing. One of these days she's going to huck up a hair ball. We are working with Kate on asking for things nicely and saying please, instead of just demanding things and bossing people around. However, she is always very grateful once you give her what she wants and the other day she even said to me, "thank you mama chica rica!"
Oh, and P.S. The girls have rediscovered bubble baths as of late. They've had loads of fun.

October Fun (and a little bit of September too)

Well, sorry we kind of disappeared there for a little bit. Since Chris didn't have any finals this last quarter, he took the time during finals week to knock out his 50 page thesis proposal for his online masters degree. I also had to hunker down and write the primary program and edit Chris' 50 page thesis proposal for submission. Kate watched a lot of Dora that week, poor girl. But she didn't complain too much, the program is finished - hooray!, the proposal got submitted, and Chris came out of his first quarter here with all A's once again. So, we are prospering, but are totally stressed out in the process. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. As always, we are looking to find better balance in our lives.But it hasn't been all work and no play. Autumn is my favorite season and I wasn't about to let it pass me by. I love back to school stuff, changing leaves, cool, crisp evenings with a jacket, caramel apples, pumpkin cookies, etc. And we have had plenty of it! First of all, we've been getting some produce out of our garden - beans, tomatoes, cilantro, green onion - and we love it!! We have also been getting HUGE zucchinis out of our garden - which we aren't quite as excited about. I mean, there's not too much to do with zucchini, if you know what I mean. We've fried it, put it in salads, made a yummy creamy zucchini soup and I made a TON of mini zucchini bread loaves that we gave away to the neighbors and the girls school teachers, and yet I still have another huge zucchini sitting on my kitchen counter. I think I'll just start giving them away from now on.
The school also put on a Fall Festival, which was a lot of fun. The girls enjoyed the cake walk, games, and decorating pumpkin sugar cookies.

Another favorite part of Autumn for me is the October General Conference. Here's a picture of this year's conference tent. The main thing I got out of this conference was the need for more love, charity, and kindness in our lives, regardless of our circumstances. I know I could definitely improve in this area (and so many others) and I'm so grateful that Conference gives me the opportunity to reflect on my life and then gives me the motivation to strive to do better.

During conference weekend we also decorated the house for Fall. The girl's favorite is always putting the decals on the windows. Oh, and do you see that beautiful corn out the window? Well, it has been pretty beaten up and we are really sad about it. This past week we had a huge tropical storm blow through here that knocked the power out for six hours and knocked all of our corn over too! Chris has tried to salvage as much of it as he can, so hopefully we'll get some corn on the cob or else I'm going to be way bummed. So yeah, crazy about the storm, eh? We go through two hurricanes in Louisiana and lose power for all of a 1/2 hour, but come to California and get the worst tropical storm we've seen so far. Maybe it's just because this area isn't used to so much rain that it caused so much trouble. But anyhoo, during the power outtage it was interesting to see the girls level of understanding. After about four hours of no power Aly was like, "when is the power going to come back on, I am so thirsty!" I let her know that we weren't without water and she could still get a drink. Analise wanted to know why we couldn't watch a movie because "we watch movies with the lights turned out all the time." And Kate just couldn't understand why I couldn't heat her milk up in the microwave. Oh how dependent we are on modern conveniences!!

So, this past week the girls have had off school for "Fall Break." We started the week out running by going to JCPenny's for the annual Family Picture pow-wow. At least it's just once a year. Next it was off to lunch to celebrate Aly being the Student of the Month. Go Aly! She got a certificate for a free lunch at Islands burger bungalo. It was scrumptious. Next we had our "after 4 years we finally finished the Book of Mormon as a family " celebration by taking the kids to see "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" and by going swimming. It was all a ton of fun, but by the end of the day we were all worn out. We spent the rest of the week rotating the girls clothes, shopping for clothes, and going to playgroup at a pumpkin patch. As we were clothes shopping, the smell of cinnamon wafted out of Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Aly said, "What?! They're selling Christmas stuff already? Wow, they're always one step ahead . . . although, Louisiana is 2 hours ahead." The things that go through that girl's head!

Besides schoolwork, Scouts has kept Chris very busy as well. He's been to training, helped the boys earn their horsemanship merit badge, taught them some tin foil dinner cooking, and taken them on a campout with more to come. He really enjoys being with the boys, despite how busy it makes him - that poor guy is always on the run! Despite this, he has still made time for me and the girls. Kate got to go on her very first daddy-daughter date and thought she was the bomb! She yelled "see ya later guys!" as she went out the door to get ice cream with her dad. That little girl is just too smart for her own good. When Analise asks me what letter is next in the alphabet, Kate will answer her (and 1/2 the time she's right!). She is also learning her colors and shapes, and loves to do puzzles. She also thinks she's Aly and Lise's mom, which they just laugh at, of course. Oh my little Kater bug.

As the grand finale for the girls week out of school, they had a sleepover with their friends Andra and Aspen. I think it was a huge success, as I heard a lot of giggling. This was a fun week off, but it will be good for the girls to get back to school. And they're learning such awesome things at school, as illustrated by the following dinner conversation:

Lise - Mom, a sink is an object because you can hold it.

Aly - Everything's an object then.

Stacy - No. There are verbs, or action words, and adjectives, or describing words, too. You can't hold "running."

Lise. OH! So a ghost is a verb. Because you can't see it.

The Hannah Montana Look Alike Contest

For Halloween, Aly wants to be "Hannah Montana", so she saved up her money and bought a genuine "Hannah Montana" wig. Of course, we all had to try it on. So now we're leaving it to you, our viewers to decide who makes the best Hannah:

Aly
Lise

Kate

Chris

or Moi!

Feel Free to post your votes!

By Request: Easy as Pie, Apple Pie

5 apples (peeled, cored, & sliced)
1 can apple juice concentrate
2 TBS. corn starch
cinnamon
Frozen pie crust
* As you start working, allow the crust and concentrate to thaw.
* After slicing apples, place them in a water bath with lemon juice to keep them from going brown.
* Pour thawed concentrate into a medium saucepan and whisk in cornstarch. Bring to a boil and then continue boiling and stirring for one minute. Remove from heat.
* Drain apples and pour into pie crust (they will be taller than the pie crust).
* Sprinkle generously with cinnamon.
* Pour concentrate mixture over pie.
* Cover with remaining pie crust and seal the edges (pinch it or use a fork.) Cut slits in top of crust to allow for steam vents.
* Bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Cover edges with tin foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes.

Well, it has been a busy couple of weeks and it does NOT seem like Autumn! September and October are the hottest months here and so it is actually finally starting to feel like summer! It's been just been a lot of playdates, volunteering, doctor's appointments, and school assemblies around here. Aly tried out for the school talent show by singing a french Christmas song she learned in Louisiana. She only knew the chorus, so she didn't make the talent show, but her teacher said if she could learn the rest by the Christmas assembly then she could sing it by herself. I think it was awesome of Aly even to want to try out!
Things have been coming together with primary: I finally have a chorister - hooray!; I've split the primary closet with the other ward and organized my side; and we finally have teachers for each of our primary classes and all of our nursery workers! (knock on wood. I know keeping a completely staffed primary is the challenge of every primary in the church!)
We've done a few more fun things as a family as well over the past couple of weeks. For Labor Day we went to Point Lobos State Park and saw some of the beautiful California coast.
We saw crabs, seals, and sea otters. There was a lot of fun rock climbing and finding as well. Cool place to go hiking!

Aly also got her braces put on this week. It has gone a ton better than I thought it would. She didn't need the expander put in the roof of her mouth and she actually likes her braces! Who woulda thunk it?

For playgroup this week I went to an apple picking farm, which was a lot of fun. Kate just liked picking the ones up off the ground.

A lady I went with said she would teach me how to make the easiest, best tasting apple pie ever, with only 4 ingredients (besides the crust, but I just buy the frozen ones). So I went to her house yesterday and made my first apple pie ever! I was so proud of myself and it is so yummy! It was very easy but I think it would be harder next time because she had some nifty-noodle apple corer/peeler/slicer thing-a-majiggy that I don't have so the chopping and peeling would take a little longer. But I think it would be worth it and might make another one for Thanksgiving.

On another food note, we got our first tomatoes out of our garden and they were scrumptious! I love fresh veggies!

This weekend we went to the aquarium again and saw the baby Great White Shark and the jelly fish this time. I really like seeing this stuff in little chunks so that we can actually have fun looking at stuff instead of dragging cranky, tired kids through the museum.

We also had fun pretending we were dolphins.

Christopher, the Balloon Slayer

(*Disclaimer: This picture of Kate is not related to the following story. It's just a picture of Kate being Kate.)

This week we had a little incident . . . a friend had brought over beautiful, shiny, purple, mylar, star balloon for the girls to play with because she was sick of it hanging around at her house (you know how long those things last). The girls loved it. There was a small gift bag tied to the string at the bottom, so it became a hot air balloon and the means of transferring toys up to Analise's top bunk and whatever else my children's imagination led them to. UNTIL. They started fighting over the balloon. I told them that if they couldn't share then I was going to take the balloon away. Well, the whining and grabbing continued until I said, "that's it! The balloon is gone." At that exact moment, Chris pulled his switch-blade from his pocket and stabbed the balloon - and the balloon was dead. All three children burst into sobs for 1/2 an hour, giving Chris the puppy dog "how could you?!?" looks. Even the next day, Kate pulled the balloon out of the trash, brought it to me, and said, "Daddy pop a balloon, mama." Quite the traumatic event at our house. So anyway, a few days later the girls started fighting over a kitty stuffed animal and I said, "Do I need to call Dad in here to cut up the kitty?" The girls got these terrified looks in their eyes and said, "NO! We'll be nice!" Chris, in his King Solomon-like wisdom, said he would happily slice any toy the children are fighting over in 1/2 and give each child a piece. Ahh, it's nice to have another bargaining chip when threatening my children.

Now for the Primary update: it has taken over my life. I go to bed thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. I'm working on the program and calling people to fill in the holes. My presidency is great, it's just going to take a little bit to get everything up and running. I do enjoy it though and I know I am going to grow to love the kids.

I've also started helping out with Aly and Analise's classes at school and I love it. I get to go listen to kids read and help out with homework bags. It's nice to feel connected with what's going on with the girl's teachers and classes.

Another major happening this week was the decision to start Aly with braces. She's got an "advanced mouth" meaning her teeth are coming in faster than her mouth can grow to accomodate them. I am really not looking forward to the whole ordeal of ortho appointments and Aly complaining, but I'm trying to stay positive for Aly's sake. Another phase of parenthood, I guess. I also took Kate in for her 2 year well baby appointment and she had yet another ear infection (her third since we've moved here). The doctor said that one of her tubes had come out and she might need to get another one put in. I'm just kind of bleh with dentists and doctors right now. I mean, I'm glad we have them and they're all super nice, it's just that doctors appointments always suck up huge amounts of time to see the doctor for like 15 minutes. Time that I do not have (or do not wish to give to that purpose, I should say.)

But other than that we're doing well. We've had some Daddy-daughter dates going on which consisted of Aly and Chris hiking along the beach, and Lise & Chris going swimming at the community center. Kate and I were feeling a little left out so I took her to the pool another time. I did get my own personal date with Chris last night which was a ton of fun just to get away from all the callings, papers, and children craziness we've got going right now. Yummy mexican, strolling along the shops, Zuka's and a movie with your hubby. What could be better? We're also going hiking along the beach as a family tomorrow for Labor day. I'm excited!

And now for a final quote of the week from Kate. She picked her nose one morning, looked at the booger, ate it, and said, "Mmm, it's a breakfast boogie."

The Three P's: Priesthood, Primary, and Potty Training

So, now that the girls are back in school I decided that this week was the week I would potty train Kate. For anyone who has ever done this before, you know what an emotional event this can be. Luckily, I was prepared. Natalie had let me borrow this book called "Potty Training in less than a Day" or something like that and it had worked for Lise like a charm, so I was ready to try again. I had out the doll that Kate would need to potty train, snacks, drinks, panties, and towels. Kate loved the whole thing and was all over it - hooray! It worked. The highlight of the training was Kate's first time pooping in the toilet. I'll give it to you in Kate's own words. "Mama, it's a huge one! I got a sea horse in my bum." Apparently we spent a little too much time looking at the sea horses at the aquarium last week.

So, hooray for Kate, the potty trained little girl! The only accidents Kate has had have been when we had friends over to play. There's just one thing: Kate is just a little too independent. She doesn't want help with anything! She'll take herself to the bathroom without being told or without telling anyone else, which is great, but after a couple of days she decided that she could dump the bucket from her little kid potty into the toilet by herself - without telling anyone. So yeah, Kate is about 75% potty trained (not overnight or during naps yet), but I've ended up cleaning up all these potty messes from Kate not quite pulling her panties down far enough before she sits down, not pouring the potty into the toilet quite right, or spilling along the way (the baby toilet is currently in the kitchen). And if you ask me, cleaning up the mess is the worst part of potty training. You know how most kids come ask for help when they can't do something? Well here's Kate's approach. She'll come up to me with her shoes or a barbie that needs to be dressed or whatever and say, "I couldn't do it myself. Sorry, mom."

Earlier this week was Chris' birthday. What an awesome guy! I am so grateful I married him and for the life we've had together (and apart). He is someone who is always striving to improve himself and excel. He cares very much about his family and works very hard to make sure we are taken care of. He also makes spending time with us a priority, no matter how many other things he's got going on. He honors his Priesthood and he is my best friend. Hang it all, I just love him! The fam took him out to dinner to Outback, his choice, and for family home evening I gave the girls a quiz to see how much they knew about their dad when he was a kid. I asked the girls if Chris had a pet when he was younger and what its name was. Analise said, "It was a cat named Lucifer." Chris' dislike for cats has made somewhat of an impression on our children. :)

And for a couple more quotes of the week. I picked Lise up from school one day and she had a paper bag frog puppet. I said, "Lise did you learn about frogs today?" She said, "We don't learn about anything in school."

The girls were painting with watercolors one day and all the water was gone in Kate's bowl. I asked, "Kate, did you spill your water?" to which she replied, "I drink it." Gross! Luckily Crayola is non-toxic and I've given up on worrying about all the things that kid puts in her mouth. Who knows what color her poop's going to be this week . . .

And finally, Chris and I should be sustained in our callings today when we go to church. Chris has been called to be the Scout Master, and I have been called to be the Primary President (over all the children in our ward 18 months - 12 years old). WHAT?!? Totally didn't see that one coming. I think I had the deer in the headlights look. I have been a little overwhelmed this week trying to figure out counselors since I don't know the ward or the children very well. I'm going to meet with the current president today after church and I'm sure I'll be even more overwhelmed then. :) But Heavenly Father will help me. I hope that I can serve and love those children in a way that is pleasing to Him.

Keepin' It Real, Back to School, and Service

Okay, so I realized that in our excitement to be in Monterey, I have only been blogging about all the fun, exciting stuff we have been doing over here. But be not deceived, we are still the same O'Gwin crew we always were, and Kate, of course, has not let me forget it. In the past few weeks she has spilled 3/4 bottle of Windex all over the floor and sat in it, pooped in the tub, and tried to stick Chris' finger up her nose to pick it for her. When Chris told her she was a punk she said, "I not a punk. I a punkin!" She's also gone around telling everyone, "I in charge!" with a stern look on her face. Now, would my angel ever do something like that?!?

Of course, we did spend the last couple of weeks before school started doing some fun stuff too. We bought the year pass to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and went to see about 1/4 of it. On this excursion we saw the Sea Horses (the baby ones were so cute!) and the Sea Otters. Lots of fun.

We also went with Playgroup to the oldest working Light house on the Pacific coast. It was neat to tour inside the light house and the view of the ocean was breath taking.

We also went to some tide pools where the kids could wade around and found tons of hermit crabs and a few real crabs. Totally cool.

Going back to the "keepin' it real" thing. I have realized that even though we may be in paradise, we cannot live in vacation mode. We still have our day to day responsibilities. Therefore, the rest of our time has been consumed with dentist appointments, keeping our garden alive, laundry, chores, exercising, and cooking. We have been busy, busy, but with a lot of good things, so all is well.

Here are Aly and Analise on their first day of school. They have been in school for one week and it has been awesome! I love that we can walk to school in five minutes (after the 20 minutes it takes for us to get ready to get out the door), I love that I got the teachers I wanted (Analise's teacher's name is Mrs. Shugars, isn't that just perfect for a Kindergarten teacher?!?), and I love that they each have 3 kids from their primary classes in their school classes so they have some friends already and feel comfortable in their classes. I know that everyone has been freaking out about all the budget cuts because California is bankrupt, and yes there are some issues: bus drivers and janitors have been let go, the music, art, computer, and PE teachers are only around because the PTA pays for them, all field trips have been cancelled, and classroom sizes are now 27 for kindergarten and 33 for all other grades with no aides, to name a few. But the atmosphere at the school is so relaxed and fun, where the teachers actually seem to like the kids, as opposed to the "children should be seen not heard" and total sterness that seemed to plague the Louisiana schools. Also, parents seem totally welcome and in partnership with the parents and making it a good experience for everyone. Anyhoo, I just love back to school. I absolutely loved school when I was younger and I get so excited for my girls to have similar experiences. Yeah, I know I'm weird, but the smell of new school supplies just makes me giddy. :)
And finally, about a week ago, Chris and I were able to attend the Oakland temple. It was an awesome experience and it made me stop and ponder about the nature of service. Chris and I had been asked to give a lady in a wheel chair a ride up to the temple. She was really nice and it was great to get to know her. It should also be mentioned that I have been suffering from a nasty cough for the past couple of weeks (I am so sick of being sick!). So anyway, we were sitting in the middle of the session and I started having a major coughing fit. The matrons in the temple had to get me a glass of water just to help me out even though I had taken cough medicine and was eating cough drops like candy. I was sitting there thinking, "great! Here I am supposed to be helping this lady, and the temple workers are having to take care of me!" But then it made me realize how we all really do need each other. Sure, I was doing a service to help out a sister in my ward, but she was also doing a service for someone by working in the temple. And as much as I thought I could do to serve, I still needed the help of others. I realized that no matter who we are or what our abilities or needs are, we all have something to give and we all can benefit from the service of others. I love the temple and how the Spirit teaches while we are there!