According to My Kids

Scene: We had just put the girls to bed and started watching a movie.
S: (yelling from her bedroom) Hey! Are you watching a movie?
Me: Yep!
S: What movie is it?
Me: It's a boring mommy and daddy movie. Good Night!
(a few minutes later, overheard from their room)
S: When you're 29, then you can watch a boring movie, too, Ivy! (repeated with ages 19, then 12)
I: Oh!
(a few more minutes later)
S: When you have eleven-teen birthdays, then you can watch a boring movie like mommy and daddy!
I: Oh! (Her response to almost everything Sophie says to her.)

Scene: At the dinner table.
S: There's blood inside my finger.
Me: Where else do you have blood?
S: My cheeks. (poking them) That's why they're fluffy.

Scene: At home.
Me: Ivy, do you want to help mommy make cheesecake or color?
I: Red! (huh.)


Scene: A few days before my parents came to visit.
S: How are Grandma and Grandpa coming?
Me: They're driving.
S: In Grandpa's truck that's green like peppers? (meaning the John Deere tractor)


Scene: Sophie noticed one of our wedding photos on the fridge.
S: (pointing to the photo) Did I see that?
Me: No, you weren't there. You weren't born yet.
S: Did I live in the old house?
Me: No, you still lived with Heavenly Father and Jesus.
S: How do we get to their house?
Me: After you die, then you can live with Heavenly Father and Jesus again.
S: But die girls don't come back!
Me: Nope, but they get to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus.
(Sophie seemed satisfied.)

Scene: Driving home from the store at about 7PM.
I: I'm just a little bit asleep. (I dess a wittew bit aseep.)

Scene: Walking around the floral section of the craft store.
S: I want some of these on my married day.
Me: You want flowers at your wedding?
S: Yes!
Me: Which ones?
S: Um. . . (walks around for a minute and looks) These ones! (Picks out white hydrangeas. Nice choice. :))

Decisiveness

Scene: Trying to get the girls to put their shoes on so we can go get the mail. (It's around the corner now instead of shoved right through my front door. Bummer.)

Me: Sophie what shoes do you want to wear? Kitty boots?

Sophie: No!

Me: The red shoes?

Sophie: No!... (in a quieter voice) Say, "sparkly".

Me: Do you want your sparkly shoes?

Sophie: No, red shoes.

Red shoes it is.

What We're Up To . . . Individually

There have been a lot of things going on that I haven't blogged about, so I'm putting it all into one random post. I've been working on this one for over a week now and it's turned into a brain-dump as well.

THE GIRLS

I can't really separate what they're up to because they're usually doing the exact same thing. (Sometimes good, sometimes bad.)

Like sitting on the couch zoned out to a movie after breakfast. With their fingers in their belly buttons. That's something Ivy started doing (when she's sleepy) and Sophie does it occasionally.

Or when they "go somewhere" in their couch cushion car. (They made that one up themselves.)

The newest excitement in the house was getting this little kitchen for them to play with it. An elderly woman in our ward had it at her house for her grandson to play with. He grew up, lost interest, and she offered to give it to us with a bunch of dishes and play food. For free. We managed to find a spot in the girls' room after packing up a bookcase and sticking it in our garage. (Hey, we're going to have to do it in the near future anyway, why not start now?) Anyway, they love it. And it keeps them out of our bedroom, where they just get into trouble.

Ivy's been interested in the potty again and will pull her pants down where ever she is in the house and say, "potty, potty!" She likes to sit on it, but so far nothing has come out. I'm not reading too much into her enthusiasm quite yet (lesson learned from Sophie). She's just mimicking her big sister for now, but it still make me happy. She's also approaching her "two's" and able to voice her opinion very strongly when she doesn't like something. But she's still in that stage where hearing her say "NO!" is still cute. She's also learning new words everyday. It's an exciting time for her :)

Sophie's her usual curious, independent self. She's started to ask "cuz why?" all the time and takes it upon herself to be "mommy" to Ivy. She's very smart and has a good memory. She's also obsessed with Belle lately and has to watch Beauty and the Beast for their after-breakfast movie just about every morning. (I have to take a shower some time. Most of the time it's the only TV they watch all day.)

I've decide to stop saying things like, "Sophie's driving me crazy," which will be tough because I say it almost every day. Instead I'm trying to say to myself, "she's trying to teach me [insert something that I need to learn]." So, lately, she's been trying to teach me flexibility. By flexibility, I mean letting go of my efforts of being efficient with my time. . . to a point. One of my peeves is something happening at a far slower pace (or more disorganized) than it reasonably should. (I know . . . not a good quality for a mom.) Sophie has to make decisions about EVERYTHING we do and she tends to take her sweet time doing so. Not a huge deal, but something with which I need to be more patient. It helps that she says funny stuff. One day while handing me a strawberry she goes, "Mommy can you cut the spinach off?" I love that she knows what spinach is, too.

Most nights before she goes to bed she has to "take the water out of her eyes". She stands at her play kitchen sink, "pulls" something out of her eye and puts it in a tiny container. Sound familiar? She's been watching me put my contacts in and take them out her whole life. I was wondering when the mimicking would start. She's a funny girl.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that she's stopped napping every day. She'll nap maybe 2 or 3 times a week. I'm adjusting to not having at least an hour of "me time" to recharge my nerves halfway through the day. I try to spend time with her doing fun things, so that helps.

STEVE

Steve's got about 6 weeks of school left. He found out that he's passed all of his national boards, and his clinic exit exam (YAY!). The only test he has left (in his life) is to get certified in whatever state he chooses to practice in. But first he has to finish clinic. This is a huge one. Um. . . know anyone who needs to get checked?? Please call Steve. Please.

One project that he's been working on is getting a website and a blog set up. Kathryn, a friend of ours and a talented graphic designer, did a logo for us and helped us choose a name for the business. Since Steve's incorporating his wellness program with his chiropractic clinic, we thought "Fusion" would be a good name to use. His website is just a blog that we set up to serve as a website until we get going and can afford to pay someone to build a nicer one. Speaking of blogs . . . he started blogging, too. And he's quite good. He puts a lot of though and consideration into what he posts. Here's his blog if you're interested in seeing what he has so far.

It seems kind of surreal that we're going to be on our own here pretty soon. Well, not completely. Steve's decided to work for someone for a while to get his feet wet and learn how to run an office before he opens his own. He's getting together some applications to send out. Luckily he can do the wellness portion whether or not he has a physical office of his own, doing health talks and enrolling people (more specifically, businesses) in the program.

Did I mention that he loves what he's doing? (Well, not GOING to school, but what he's learning and getting ready to implement.) He lights up every time you get him going on a health-related topic. That makes me happy. I really don't care how much money he makes if he's happy with what he's doing and we can pay off his loans before we die.

Steve still serves as the Stake Young Men Secretary (leadership over the young men in our area), but luckily it doesn't take him away too often. He's gone often enough!


NAT

Well, I'm still plugging along keeping our home together and our kids dressed and fed. Cooking and blogging really is my creative outlet and it keeps me sane. I like to keep my "food life" off this blog, but I thought I'd give you a couple of updates that were pretty exciting to me.

Over the past few months I've had the chance to teach a couple of classes during weeknight Relief Society (women's organization at church) meetings. One was about healthy eating and the other was rolling sushi. Ya, rolling sushi. When they asked me to do it I'd made sushi a total of ONE time. Both classes turned out fun, though.

I have a steadily growing readership on my food blog which both excites me and gives me stage-fright. If you don't read my food blog that much or never get on Facebook, you may have missed my little announcements of getting featured in the spring issue of Latter-Day Woman Magazine (online only, page 10) and on Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen Blog. Those were very happy days. :)

Outside the kitchen, I've tried my hand at growing a few things. I'm usually a horrible gardener. Add to that, very little space or sunshine and most green things under my care end up dead. At least flowers. After I had a tomato plant explode, crawl up our porch and almost move into our house the first summer we were here, I planted three in the same spot along with about 10 different kinds of herbs tucked here and there. Holy, Hannah. That must be the magical tomato spot because I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. So far only one has turned red. I hope we're here long enough to pick some. If not, I'm sure my neighbors will find things to do with them.

Oh, and I had a little pink rose plant (yes, Natasha, THAT plant) stolen right out of the ground. It wasn't cut or trimmed off -- it looked like someone had dug around the roots and lifted it right out of the ground. And I swear my chives looked significantly smaller one day as I went to trim some off.

I recently was released from the Primary presidency (leadership over the children's organization at church). All of us were released, actually, and it was rather sudden. And bittersweet. Since then I've been the roving substitute. I don't mind at all.

That's about it for us. If you've made it all the way to the end, consider yourself "gold-starred".

Discovery Channel at the Dinner Table

Here we have Sophie eating some pizza on Saturday. Crazy hair and all. (I love her wild, unruly hair. It fits her personality.)

And here's a shot of her pizza nursing its baby.

Huh?

After watching a mammal segment on the new Life series (Discovery Channel -- awesome show!) the night before, she took the liberty of extending lactating abilities to her food.

Sophie's logic: Whenever there are both a large and a small version of the same object, one must be the mom and one must be the baby. Moms nurse their babies, thus, large pieces of pizza nurse smaller pieces of pizza.

It totally makes sense. :)

No Milk

We've had a rough week. Monday was probably the worst, and Sophie's temperament most likely was due to a few late nights in a row coupled with no nap on Sunday with a sprinkle of never- sleeping-past-7:30AM-no-matter-what on top. She also spilled an entire tube of red glitter on the table and got a vitamin stuck up her nose. But those things seemed pretty uneventful in comparison.

Again, I'm thankful for her keen observations and commentary on life (and conversations like this) to make me smile amidst the hair-pulling. (My own.)

As I was getting dressed one morning . . .

Sophie: (pointing at my "girls") Any milk in those?

Me: Nope, not anymore.

Sophie: Did Ivy drink it all?

Me: Yep, she did.

Sophie: So there's no more left?

Me: Nope.

Sophie: Until the new baby comes, huh.

Me: Ya, sometime.

Sophie: But not today.

Me: No, not today.

Thinking: Not for a V-E-R-Y long time.

P.S. I'm not pregnant.
P.P.S. I really miss those girls.

More Sophie-isms or Documenting Facebook Statuses

There are a lot of things that Sophie says that I just slap up on Facebook and fail to document anywhere else. Here are a few of the ones I haven't posted here.

I posted this photo of her a week or two ago with the comment that if I look at it long enough, it might convince me not to sell her on eBay. I think we're past that (most days), and with the enormous amount of encouragement and guidance we received this past weekend during General Conference, I think we'll make it. She's a sweet girl. She's also very emotional, and very strong-willed. That will come in handy later in life, I think. At least it did for me. :)

Anyway . . . I'm glad she says stuff like this. It snaps me out of any frustration I feel and it reminds me how silly and fun she can be.

*****

If we're reading a book together and I take longer than 3 seconds to start reading, she'll say, "Mommy, start your mouth!"

*****

During our nightly struggle to get Sophie to sit on the potty before she gets in the tub, she goes, "I'll stay dry in the tub!!!!" (That would be a good trick.)

*****

Sophie said (while pointing to a mermaid in a book), "They have pony tails on their backs!"

*****

Sophie's taken it upon herself to potty train Ivy. She took Ivy's pants and diaper off, sat her on the potty and gave her some encouraging words. . .

"Want to sit on the potty little one?"
"Hold your dress up"
"Gonna go poos? Hmm??"
"There you go, good girl!"
"Want me to watch? OK, I'll watch.",... "All done?"
"Now Sophie's going to sit on the potty, K?"

(I think I'm off the hook this time.)

"How To Make a Flower Arrangement" by Sophie

Step 1: Go out into the yard and find the only shrub that has flowers on it. Cut them all off. Bring them in the house and tell mom to get a bowl of water.

Step 2: Put all the flowers in the bowl.

Step 3: When all the flowers are in, stare at it for a few seconds to make sure everything looks OK.

Step 4: Blow. Because that's usually the first thing you do when mom gives you a bowl of something.

What Sandwich Families Do on Monday Nights

"Mommy! They're having family night!"

(Is that how we look on the couch?)

According to Sophie

I didn't think I would get this look for at least another 10 years. She's getting quite an attitude. But she also makes me laugh a lot. It seems the harder they are to handle, the better the good times get. (And the more entertaining they become.)

I've been keeping a running list of funny things Sophie says for the past couple of months, and I'm sure this won't end for a while, so here's the first installment.

Sophie: "Ivy's a rhino."
Me: "Why?"
Sophie: "Ivy has a shoe on her hand. Means -- leave her alone. She's a rhino. She's crawling."

* * * * * * * * *

"It's dark outside! Time to have breakfast!" (At 6:30 PM. She's an early riser, so it's often dark when we eat breakfast. Ugh.)

* * * * * * * * *

"Don't make Sophie sad!!"

* * * * * * * * *

(First prayer all by herself)

Thankful for this day.
Help us be reverent. (I think they say this at church a lot.)
Don't pull out the shoes. (From the basket by the front door. She used to always get into those.)
Name Jesus Christ, Amen.

* * * * * * * * *

(I'm raising a little foodie.)

Sophie noticed a small bowl of feta cheese sitting on the counter while I was making dinner. She asked for some. I gave her a bite and she says, "It's goat cheese!"

"Actually, it's feta," I corrected her.

"No, it's goat cheese."

* * * * * * * * *

She comes over to me with a toy cell phone that's a flip phone. She opens it up and says, "Mommy! I made you waffles!"

According to Sophie

This is a "birthday cake candle". . .

A bug catcher doubles as a crayon container. And it looks a lot like a gallon of milk. I've found it in the fridge on several occasions . . .

By the way, those containers sitting under the crayons are the coolest things ever. They're called Glasslock storage containers. They're glass on the bottom, but have plastic lids with a silicone seal that snap on and off, so they're spill-proof. They can go in the microwave and the dishwasher. I got a set at Costco, which is the cheapest I've seen them.

And this is a "cupcake moon" . . .

So is this one . . .

Basically any moon is a "cupcake moon". We have no idea where she came up with that. I don't even make cupcakes very often.

A few more of her latest things. . .

"It's too fit!!!" - When something is too tight or hard to get on, usually a shoe.

"What's that noisy?" - for "What's that noise?"

"Flamangoes" - Her new word for mangoes, after a couple of trips to the zoo.

Every time we leave to go somewhere, she has to pick a leaf off of either my basil or mint plant sitting by the door. Makes the car smell nice.

Oh, and one morning while we were eating breakfast she goes, "Daddy upstairs takin' shower." "Yep, he is," I said back to her. Then she goes, "Daddy put hairs in chin."

Yep, he does. And I really wish he'd stop doing that. :)

Sophie also lives and breathes for the little yogurt popsicles I make her. Even in October. I'll probably end up making them year-round. She loves smoothies, too . . .

I'm Pretty Sure Our Pens Walk Around

. . . because we try really hard to keep them out of reach. Sophie scribbled on the wall a few weeks ago, and the other day she stood next to it and said,

"You color on wall -- Mommy's pen. Are you crazy?"

(pointing to the scribbles) "That's crazy!"

Sidenote: She meant to say, "I color on wall . . ." She's still sorting out first person. What a confusing thing for a toddler.

Unrelated photo, I know. Check out those Daisy Duke's. They're actually Ivy's shorts. She got soaked at the park last month, so I put them on her and they fit her little bum. They're 3-month shorts. And they fit both girls. They definitely didn't get that from me. (Thanks for the idea, Heather!)

The Evolution of Words

It's fascinating to me how toddlers learn to talk. I love listening to Sophie's interpretations of sounds and words and how words change over time. (Secretly hoping that she'll never say some things correctly. . . we've started calling blueberries "boo-bahs" just so she'd continue to call them that. I know I'm not the only one who does this.)

One of my favorites was the word "orange". It started off as "oooorrrrnng" (like saying it without vowels), then turned into "o-wan-dah". Not sure where that came from, but adding syllables rocks. Now she says it fine.

"Octopus" is coming along nicely, too. I think the last time I mentioned it she was saying "op-i-tiss". Well, like poor orange, it's take a turn in a different direction . . .

Every time I hear her say it it makes me wince a little, then giggle.

Fimming

Ever since our little pool party at the neighbors, Sophie has wanted to put her "fim-suit" back on and "fim". She talks about it everyday. The weather has been delightful these past couple of weeks, but I didn't think 70 degrees was warm enough to "fim". Saturday warmed up, so we (I) blew up the pools. (Manually... er... facially? I felt like I was going to pass out, but not as bad as when I did it 6-months pregnant last summer. We need to get our bike pump back.)

I had planned on blowing them up in the morning, then letting them sit for a few hours to warm up the water. Plans don't really happen most of the time. Sophie was in her suit before 11AM, playing in ice cold water, fresh from the hose. And loving it.

Thanks for the pool, Perins!

Ivy woke up from her nap, we ate lunch, then Sophie wanted to go back out and "fim". I slipped Ivy into her suit, lowered into the water and waited for her reaction. The water was by no means warm. It wasn't ice-cold, but it was. . . cool. I certainly would have gasped had I sat in that pool (and my mom would have sang some opera like she used to when we'd go waterskiing), but Ivy didn't. Unlike Sophie's first experience with kiddie pools, Ivy loved it. I can add that to my "why my girls are polar opposites" list.

Ivy's famous tongue-smile. She sat in that pool until her feet were shrivled and she started to shiver a bit, but she didn't complain once.

I love that Ivy's sitting up so well now. She loves it, too. She's graduated to sitting up in the tub by herself and riding up front in the cart. That last one isn't a problem because Sophie insists on walking everywhere we go now. I never thought I would dread going grocery shopping. It makes me sad.

One bowl on the head is just not enough.

Sophie does great impressions. She can do just about every little noise Ivy makes.

Aw, Man . . .

I totally dropped the ball. I had a lot on my mind yesterday and blogging totally slipped my mind. I'll post twice today to make up for it. Fair?

Some of you have been asking about Sophie. She still has a couple of blisters on her feet, but otherwise, she's back to her "normal" self. . .

Sophie Says

Since Sophie began stringing words together a few months ago, I've been anxiously waiting to hear some "Sophie-isms". Here's one of my favorites. . .

Since finding a ginormous black spider on my yoga mat the other day, I no longer keep it behind the couch. It's rolled up in the corner in plain view of my curious little one. She pulled it out today and played with it. By played I mean unrolling it, then running back and forth across it.

Did I say yoga mat? Pardon me -- I meant "yogurt mat". I have so much to learn from her.

Permissiveness or Why There's a Hole in My Sandwich

We're up in Idaho right now visiting my family. It's nice to be back. It's nice to have a break from my life and for the girls to have a change of scenery. The only thing that would make it better is it Steve was here. (long story) We were hoping to get out the kiddie pool, but it looks like it's going to rain the entire time we're here. I'm OK with that. It keeps the pollen on the ground.

Being at grandma and grandpa's house means Sophie can pretty much do what she wants. Yesterday afternoon was a good example of that. My mom had taken a loaf of bread out of the bread machine and set it on a cooling rack. In front of Sophie. I think these photos tell the story well on their own.

Thanks for the pics, Dad!

Hot Feet

Last week Sophie found a bottle of red nail polish and sat on the floor, hitting the bottle against her toes. Of course she wanted her toenails painted red. Mama's are red.

I carefully painted one set of tiny toenails and blew on them for a couple of minutes until I was sure they were dry. She helped. Then we did the same for the other foot.

A few minutes later I was in the kitchen and she walks in on her heels, staring at her toes.

"Look at your pretty toes!" I say to her.

She looks at me and says, "Hot."

Yes, I guess they were. Good thing we blew on them to cool them off.

I Can't Think of a Tactful Title

So . . . we're at the park this afternoon and Sophie wanders over to a women on the grass who's playing with a puppy. I follow her over and make small talk with the lady as Sophie warily eyes the dog.

Suddenly Sophie points at the lady and says, "Mock." (milk)

"Milk?" I say, a little confused.

The lady motions to the picnic basket behind her and says, "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie. I don't have any milk."

Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out why she would say that because the container in her picnic basket doesn't look anything like a milk carton. Then I look back at the woman and notice that she's very well endowed.

And showing a lot of cleavage.