Too Long! and A Night at the Emmys

Wow. This is really sad. Eli is fifteen months old next week (oops...tomorrow! No wonder it takes me so long to get around to posting, I have no sense of time!) and I still haven't even updated his one year stuff. Oh well, he's definitely more exciting now than he was at 12 months anyway, but that will have to wait another day or two still.

This post is just to give you all the video of our tango performance at the regional Emmy's back in June. We aren't preofessional by any means, but I was proud of us, I think we did pretty well. There are some pics of our rehearsal/show prep too, just to give you an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nataspsw#p/u/1/eAVNIx1fT8E

Seasons of life

I feel so thankful today for all of the roles I get to play in my life. Today, for the first time in probably 11 years, I had my first performance as a dancer (as part of the Tango with Colette performance group). I was gone for most of the day, and it was SO much fun...getting all dressed up, having a photo shoot, you know...especially as we prepare for our performance at the Emmys in a few weeks...so neat. I loved it.

When I came home, I was just in time to put Joshua to bed. After he was all tucked in with his teddy bears, I laid down on the floor next to his bed and held his hand as he fell asleep. His bears are always covering his face and all I could see was the cute outline of his dark, fuzzy hair, and feel his sweet, pudgy little hand twitching around my fingers as he fell into a deep sleep.

After Joshie was asleep, I came downstairs and snuggled Eli in my arms while he drank his bottle, and we listened to Seth read "Ramona the Pest" with Hannah on the couch next to us. Then we got those two bedded down (everyone by 6 p.m....fantastic!) and my wonderful husband gathered food for our dinner and sat with me to eat and watch a movie and just snuggle. The house is a little messy, and we're up a little late, but the range of experiences I had and roles I was able to fulfill today just amazes me.

Between church callings (EQP for Seth, RS teacher for me), marriage, three kids, and tango (working and dancing), I feel like I am super busy and exhausted most of the time. In the Church we always talk about "seasons" of our lives, which I've usually taken to mean that people should do only one thing at a time (be a mom, go to work, volunteer, do family history...those sorts of things), but I am constantly amazed -- and SO thankful -- that this "season" of my life includes more, and oddly enough these various roles seem necessary to keep each other balanced: dancing helps keep me sane by keeping my own personal identity while being a full-time mother, which also helps me to find joy in being a mother; at the same time, being a wife and mother helps keep me grounded and focused throughout my involvement in the Tango world...which is good cuz I think I'm really going to enjoy the excitement and flashiness of dancing on t.v. :)

In addition to this, I am SO SO SO incredibly blessed to have such a fantastic husband who is SO trusting and supportive of me in all of this. Throughout this busy-ness we have to work together more than we ever have in our married life and we are closer and more thoughtful of each other because of it. I just depend on him and love him so much. I couldn't do anything that I do without him, and of course I wouldn't even have the opportunities I do have without the Lord. And that gratitude is what drives me to support Seth in his calling and fulfill my own, even without a lot of "spare time", because I realize that all of these roles are gifts from the Lord and I don't want to take them for granted or let Him down. And so we come full circle! I'm so thankful for the Lord's hand in my life. I couldn't have planned it half as well myself.

Hannah

Hannah has been pretty funny lately. She is obsessed with Rapunzel and long hair. She uses everything from blankets to measuring tapes tied around her head to imitate long hair. In fact I went to pick her up from her after-school aerobic dance class on Monday and I saw her out there dancing with her skirt on her head (don't worry, she had been wearing pants under the skirt). When they were choosing partners for the last part of class and an older girl skittered away from her to partner with someone else, I suddenly realized...WE HAVE THE WEIRD KID! Ahhh! :) Nah, it's fine, she has lots of friends in her kindergarten class. Maybe the kids just have to know her to appreciate her imagination. I'm glad she's comfortable with herself and not bothered by their reactions. She's so funny.

A funny story: In my family growing up, we liked to scare each other. All.The.Time. We got it from my dad. I think it's stress-relieving for him. Well, I kind of miss that, because although Seth has a great sense of humor (see previous post), he's not much for surprising people.

Anyway, one day last week or so, Hannah woke up on the WRONG side of the bed. She was SO grumpy I'm not sure she even slept IN a bed. Super crabby girl. Usually Seth walks her to school, then heads off to work, but he wasn't quite ready this particular day, and I wanted Hannah OUT of the house so I didn't bother waiting for him, I took her myself. Most of the way there, she was walking (stomping) yards ahead of me on the sidewalk, turning around every few seconds to give me dirty looks and growl at me. After awhile, a bicycle came up behind me and I thought, Oh this will be funny, it's going to scare Hannah to death! Sure enough, as it rode by her she jumped a mile and turned around to look at me, panicked. But she saw me laughing, and snarled at me "It's NOT funny! STOP LAUGHING!" And continued on her march.

So then I decided to have a little fun myself. I sneaked up behind her on the sidewalk, grabbed her around the shoulders and growled. Of course she jumped and yelled as I stood there laughing, but -- believe it or not -- she began to laugh, said "You scared me! That was fun!" and held my hand the rest of the way to school, happy as a clam! As we were walking back home that afternoon, she said, "Remember when I was grumpy this morning, and you scared me and then I was happy?!"

I'm so glad I finally figured out what to do when my kids are moody. This could make life a lot more enjoyable!

Seth in his sleep....

I consider myself to be luckier than most women. My husband not only has a good sense of humor when he's awake, he's also hilarious when he's asleep. Occasionally he treats me to some very interesting conversations/shows/etc during the night, and I am always thankful I was awake at the right time to witness them. Here are a couple of incidents from this past week.

The first few days of the week I am at tango practices so late in the evening that Seth is usually in bed asleep by the time I get home. Some night earlier this week, maybe Mon or Tue, was one such night. I quickly got ready for bed, leaned over and gave Seth a kiss on the cheek as I got into bed, and he (totally asleep) started talking to me in his best "tough guy" voice. First he just mumbled "thank you!" with kind of a giggle (if you can imagine a tough guy giggling). Then he says, sounding smug and tough, "If I have an eruption, you'll know what to do. And who to call." Since that makes no sense I of course asked him to repeat himself, which he obligingly did two or three times. Then I started laughing, which he must have found offensive, because he came back with, "What's so funny? Rarr-rarr-rarr!" (some sort of weird lion growl)...."Looks to me like you're looking for a punch in the face!" I thought I was going to die laughing but I did my best to stop since you never know what he'll do in his sleep and I was afraid he actually might punch me!

Then yesterday we went shopping at Costco and got some new pajamas for Joshie and Eli. We also got a new dresser at IKEA that we were up late putting together, and our room was such a mess we just slept downstairs, me on the couch and Seth on the floor. Of course the living room was also a mess because we still had so much Costco stuff out. Well, apparently it's not safe to leave anything out near Seth while he is sleeping, because we woke up a little after 5:30 this morning to tend a hungry baby, and as Seth was stumbling around mostly asleep, trying to get a bottle for Eli, he noticed something tight around his upper left thigh. That woke him up enough to wonder, "What the heck is this?" And in the dark I see him pull off Eli's new pajama shorts!!!!!!!! I'm talking size 12-month shorts here, all the way up around Seth's leg! He of course had NO idea how on earth they ended up there, and when we though to check later today, sure enough he has totally stretched out one leg of Eli's new pj's that he hasn't even worn yet!

Sometimes I think this man is crazy... but he sure keeps things exciting! Love ya honey! ;)

Eli at 10 months

Eli turns 10 months tomorrow and I can't believe I have not done these kinds of posts more often. I've been meaning to update just about Eli for about 5 months now. Oops. I do keep track of all this in a baby calendar for him though, it's just easier for me to pick up a pen than get on the computer.

Anyway -- this poor little guy doesn't get nearly the attention he deserves in our blog. Here are his (almost) ten-month stats:

Height: 30.5 inches

Weight: 19 lbs

Number of teeth: 5

Crawling: yes! Our earliest mover. Started right about 9 months.

Favorite things: Food. People. Drinking water. His hands (thumbs especially, they're a new discovery for him). Waving. Music,singing, dancing. Noisy/musical toys. Getting attention from people, especially Hannah and Joshua. Bathtime. Making people laugh. (Lately his favorite way to do this is by taking the wet wipe I'm using to clean off his face and stuffing it into his mouth. Hannah and Joshie think this is pretty funny.) Toy cars.

Doesn't like: Bedtime (most of the time. He's a pretty good sleeper, but hates being put in bed.) People trying to put things in his hands. (If you want to give him something, you have to lay it down in front of him first and he will examine it and decide if he wants to pick it up or not. He's always been like this.) Putting things in his mouth (this even includes little finger foods -- he will pick them up but not EVER feed them to himself, we have to do it. Obviously this is great for the most part, but it makes teething extra hard because he won't chew on anything to help himself feel better).

Eli is such a cute little goofy baby. He's still very easygoing and likes to just explore, but doesn't get into trouble. He really only gets fussy when he's tired, and then he starts in on this awful whiny moan. And doesn't let up until he goes to sleep. So we try not to let him get to that stage, for everyone's sake. :) We all LOVE Eli and can't imagine life without him. Joshie especially is still loving to take care of him -- he wants to feed him (solids and bottles), get toys for him, take baths with him, "babysit" him (which is usually watching him through his toilet-paper-roll "telescope" when I have to leave the room), share cars with him, etc. They are going to be such great little buddies, I'm excited to see how they start playing together in the next few months.

I like to think I will do this post again at the end of the next month but really, it will probably be a birthday post next time! Man that is going by fast. We love you Peli!

Happy Birthday Hannah and Happy Easter!

Well, Hannah's gone and had another birthday (didn't we just barely celebrate the last one?) and she got to have a long drawn out celebration this year. She has two neighbor friends that have birthdays the same week as hers (actually one has the same birthday), so we had to have her party about a week and half early. The day before her party, she and Joshua got to go to an indoor playground called Kidventures where they got to dress up and play in a castle, a fire station, and a disco dance floor complete with mirror ball!

The next day, a few of her friends came over and we had pizza and a delicious "sunflower" cake made by the lovely Rebecca (yes, this is Seth writing).

Then on Hannah's birthday, we took cupcakes to Hannah's class which were a big hit with the kids. Hannah chose the Corvette Diner for her family birthday dinner (just like last year) that night and decided to wear something a little more formal.

Sadly, the birthday celebration had to come to an end (goodness knows she begged to keep it going), but then came Easter. After church, we came home and made a delicious Easter meal: Rebecca's delicious homemade mac and cheese, green beans and parsley, honey-glazed ham and Hawaiian sweet rolls. Unfortunately, someone accidentally turned off the oven (sabatoge!) and the ham was not ready in time for the kids to enjoy. We leave you now with some family photos of us in our Easter Sunday best. Enjoy!

Just look at these little angels!

Family Videos

We have a few family videos to share. The first is a video of Hannah performing with her Heartlight aerobic dance team. It's an afterschool dance program and Hannah loved it. They performed at the Spreckels Organ Pavillion in Balboa Park last month.

Next we have a video of Joshua quoting his favorite line from the Cosby show, where Elvin tries to imitate Cliff (Bill Cosby): "Why don't you two get a job and get out of my house and you will see me do some major dancin' on your face!"

Finally, we have Eli learning to crawl a few weeks ago. Cute little baby!

Travelogue Part II

So, to recover from my non-vacation, Seth's parents came out to visit last weekend and we got to go away and spend a night in Coronado, at the Hotel Del! It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G to have 24 hours without children -- we got a super fantastic massage, had a delicious dinner courtesy of Marshall -- thank you Papa! -- and slept 9 HOURS STRAIGHT! I didn't wake up until 8 a.m. Wow! It was great. Then we had a great breakfast and I took a nice, hot bath before we checked out of the hotel.

It was so relaxing I felt like I was drugged the rest of the weekend, til Monday afternoon. I just could not "wake up". I guess that's my body telling me I'm too tired from getting 5-6 hours of interrupted sleep every night for the past 7 months, in addition to child care and as much tango as I do. Go figure. Unfortunately, while Oma took charge of the kids Monday -- my last chance for freedom! -- I went into exile (reading out at the pool) for a little too long and got FRIED! I have a terrible, excruciatingly painful, probably 2nd-degree sunburn all over my body. Small price to pay for being along all afternoon, right?

We relaxed so much while on vacation, I didn't even bother taking a picture. But last June, Darlene stayed with the kids for a night while we visited Coronado. We didn't stay at the Del that time, but took a picture outside it, so I thought I would finally post that. (Thanks Dar!) I'm sooooo relieved that I didn't look like that this time around! And thank you, thank you Oma and Papa! Mama needed the break! Ready to come back yet??? :D

Travelogue

I am pretty behind in this, but about a month ago my sister Tiffany and her husband Robbie adopted a darling baby boy! Eli and I took a trip out to Vegas to visit them and help them out with the new baby and moving to a new apartment. Daxton and Eli had a great time checking each other out and Tiff and I of course had a blast stuffing ourselves with junk food, watching I Love Lucy, and playing games. (Robbie joined in on some of the junk food and game playing). :) We also enjoyed not getting dressed or leaving the house for 3 days!!! (At least I enjoyed that!) Can't wait to do it again -- next time WITHOUT any of my kids! I adore them and Eli is a great baby, but he was teething and not happy to be in a strange place at nighttime, so I did not get any sleep. And he was kind of a whiner during the day and needed a lot of entertaining, which is not typical for him. Still, I am so glad I could come and thanks for all the fun, Tiff! and Rob! And Daxton of course!

You can tell how tired I am by the way I look in this picture! :P

That weird-but-cute baby to the left is never happier than when another child is crying his head off. He grins and giggles like a little goofball when someone else is screaming. ? :)

Look at your own risk!

I have been spending the last few days scanning all of our old non-digital photos onto the computer and it has been really depressing to see how awful most of them are!!! Oh my gosh. I have always known I am not very photogenic and not very fashionable either but I never thought I looked THAT bad! Holy cow that's embarrassing. I came across this picture of when I was first pregnant with Hannah....I look SO frumpy! Not much I could do about my Humpty-Dumpty pants (except buy a more fashionable pair of maternity jeans I guess), but my shirt was WAY too short (but who can tell when you're pregnant? Everything looks long enough from the top view!) I like to think that if we had had a digital camera and I saw this picture as soon as it was taken, the picture and the shirt would have been gone in that instant!! And the shirt would have been replaced with one long enough to cover up the Fred Mertz look from the pants. So anyway, I would like to formally apologize to anyone who ever had to see me looking like this on a regular basis, and thank all of you wonderful people for still being my friends!!!!

Ok I cannot believe I am going to share this picture with anyone -- everyone! -- it should totally be destroyed. (The picture is crooked because I had too much scanning to do to care particularly that they weren't all perfectly straight. But obviously that's the least of this picture's problems!!!)

More of the same...

I promise this is not going to be the only topic of this blog for the rest of my life, I just need to get it out of my system! I guess the reason I can't think of anything else to say is because this IS my life...all day, every day...Joshua spelling random words out, and The Cosby Show.

Joshie likes to copy words and phrases he finds in random places around the house. I don't have pictures of all of them, but in addition to this Disney one, we've also recently come across such things as "White-Rogers" (the brand name on our thermostat...minus the hyphen of course) and "Guthy-Renker" (the company that produced my Pilates videos, again minus the hyphen).

Obviously since his whole life revolves around the Cosby show right now, he likes to write out things pertaining to that topic...above is his very own phonetic spelling of "Vanessa"...pretty good for a 3-year-old!!!! He's a genius :)
And he has officially changed his name to "Cosby" and has to remind us every day that his name is NOT Joshua, it is Cosby (well, one day it was Mary Ann, from Alice in Wonderland...)

...and unfortunately I did not get a picture of this one, and it felt like cheating to redo it myself, but I came across a word in the living room that said "INOCOSBY"......"I know Cosby!" His reaction when I read it out was so cute...giddy and a little embarrassed, like he simply could NOT resist any longer the temptation to spell out his deepest fantasy, and was SO excited to see it there but, at the same time, embarrassed to have it there in the open for someone else to see. He cracks me up.

...and before I forget, he said the funniest Cosby quote the other day. I was coming down the stairs and heard him say, directed at Seth, "Why don't YOU...get a JOB...and get outta my house!"

Someone save me, this one's starting already!!!!!

Obsession

Joshua's two favorite activities: spelling things and The Cosby Show

Last week

Stunk. Here was our week in a nutshell:

1- Joshua gets sick, has fever for 3 days. (Technically I guess this was LAST last week, but it jumpsarted the week for us so I'm counting it.)

2-Rebecca makes dinner, takes dinner out of the oven and immediately sticks her forearm against the pan. Dinner was good, but definitely not worth it...should've ordered a pizza.

3-Eli gets sick, has 102-degree fever for 5 days.

4-Hannah falls off the swing at school, gets her lower back badly scraped up but only on the individual vertebrae (about 5 of them). Hurts her a lot :( but it's an interesting-looking wound.

5-Seth goes on travel for work...passes out on the airplane, complete with sitting down in his coworker's lap (a guy...heehee) and then smacking his head on the way down. (After donating blood at work that morning and not drinking any thing afterward...lesson learned...)

6-Hannah gets sick, has about 103-104 fever for three days, also congestion, sore throat, cough, vomiting (only at night...naturally...). However I do have to be thankful that she was a lot tougher this time and gave us at least one night where she coped with things herself and didn't wake us up crying about her stuffy nose. Little things mean a lot!

7-Eli gets tremendous diaper rash...it's red...it oozes...and now it bleeds. And he wakes up constantly. All.night.long.

8-And we haven't done our dishes since Tuesday!!!!

Looking forward to a better week this week! :)

The cutest little Lamanite on the block

Bye Bye Baby...

...tooth, that is! Hannah's opinion of this event: "I look better now than I did before! I'd look even better if I had FIVE losed teeth -- AND glasses!"