Aunt Glenda's / Provo City Center Temple

Star Wars fun in the Jungle Room

Last weekend we decided to take the chance to go down to Pleasant Grove to see Jordan's Grandpa Johnston for a quick, probably last visit. Kathie and Winslow are there with him at Aunt Glenda and Uncle Gary's house, so we were excited to see all of them too (And, the kids were also super excited about the toys they remembered!)

While we were there, we got to visit the open house and take a little tour of the Provo City Center temple. It was so beautiful and just really wonderful to walk through and point out all the special little things to the kids.  Something about walking through each room along with the kids made the blessings and work of the temple seem even more simple and wonderful. I really loved it. (Ellie especially loved the stained glass, and it was fun yesterday at our Stake Conference in the Logan tabernacle to notice the stained glass there and be reminded of our special day at the temple the weekend before.)

(Also, a beautiful description of this temple here )

sick days / sunny days / solutions

poor sick Ellie + brothers happy for some extra movie time :)

We've all been taking turns in Ellie's position this week. I was sick over the weekend when we visited Aunt Glenda's and Kathie & Winslow & Grandpa Johnston. I assumed it was just pregnancy sickness though until Porter also started throwing up the next day. And then Landon, then Ellie...

This morning Ellie thought she might be ready to go back to school, but was just so tired. After lots of back and forth, she finally decided to stay home. After a morning of resting and a stroller-ride walk, she went outside with Owen a bit before lunch and before long they were climbing over the snow tunnel and wrapped up in their pretend world of brothers and dads and bad guys and magic... And they've been playing and pretending since - such magical wonderful sounds to hear! :)

And a discovery --

Last week (before the latest sickness) I was talking to Jordan about how tired I was feeling. "It should be the easiest part of pregnancy and Porter's sleeping all night (!!) and I'm napping in the afternoons... I feel like I should just feel like a superhero, but I'm suddenly just so tired!"  He immediately suggested maybe I was low on iron, and it was like a ta-da!/magic light bulb moment. (I'm not going crazy, I'm not just being lazy, I'm not just being a wimp... there's a reason!) I've almost always been low in iron through my other pregnancies, (and my diet has been almost completely void of any meat or dark green high iron veggies these days)  but I hadn't had my lab work done yet like I was supposed to and just kind of forgot about it. Jordan took a quick trip to the store and came back with iron capsules and a bag full of carefully chosen high-iron snacks  (shelled pumpkin seeds, roasted almonds, extra dark chocolate...) And by the next day I was feeling much more super-hero-ish :)

(Meaning, when I opened the fridge and saw package of raw hamburger in it, instead of thinking yet again "oh dear, what a waste! I'm never going to get around to cooking it and I'm just going to have to throw it out..."  Instead I opened the fridge and saw the hamburger and pulled it out and cooked it :) (Because that's what a super hero does around here I guess!)

I'm still trying to figure out the right balance of enough iron to help with tiredness without too much that it makes me sick... but It was sure nice to have a reason for feeling so tired (and a sweet husband to force lovingly remind me to take those little iron pills)


And I think everyone is finally just about back to being healthy for now, so I'm excited for a sunny day and  for the weekend ahead!

happy weekend

I think this started out as a "take my picture" by Ellie to document her crinkly hair before school one morning. Then she had one brother next to her, then two, then all three :) I sure love these guys!

We were so excited to be into February (and out of January) this year that I even hung up our calendar a few days early. And though February was much less busy, it had lots of little events the first few weeks for me. Nothing too big or crazy, but just things that meant I had to get dressed up in real clothes most days :) Today we had book group at our house (again, not a big thing, but just something requiring vacuuming) and it was kind of the last extra scheduled thing for the month. So I'm feeling relieved and happy for a more empty calendar this next little while. Landon always asks when he gets in the car after school "what's on the calendar today?" and one day he said, "I love it when there's lots of stuff on the calendar!" I know I've felt like that in the past, but these days I'm just so happy with empty calendar spaces!

Other little things from this week:

-We've had very few Porter disasters, woohoo!
- I went to help out in Landon's class yesterday during dance, and it was so super fun to watch those kids dance! (And dance with them a little bit too with the heel-toe polka :)
- I'm loving watching Owen learning right now. He finished reading his first kit of 'Sam books' from the library this week and has also been so excited to figure out little math problems. Driving home from school, he said from the back of the van "Mom, you + Dad equals 69!"(32 + 37)
- Porter is sleeping so much better these days! He's reached the tipping point where there are more sleep-all-night nights than wake-ups -- hip, hip hooray!!!
- Ellie's taking on Porter preschool time too now. Landon's friend Will was over one day while she was having school time with the boys and said to her, "Maybe we should pay you to come teach all these things to (my little sister) Abby!"

a baby boy!

I had my ultrasound on Friday, and we have a healthy baby boy on the way! We celebrated with some balloons and a little Studio C  + baby boy cake lunch party :) (After some comforting time for Ellie who was very sad that her wish for a baby sister wasn't coming true!)  I'm so excited for this one more little boy to join our family! 

sunshine day

We checked the temperature before our lunchbreak walk this morning, and it was 49 degrees! Woohoo! We were thrilled last week when we got a warm afternoon of 35 :) We had some beautiful snow this weekend that also cleared out the week's inversion, then these warm days!

We got home from our walk this morning and Owen asked to stay outside to ride his scooter. I sat on the porch while the boys played (and our neighbors from across the street joined in). What a happy warm winter day!

Also this weekend: a long 4 1/2 day winter break from school for the kids, a fancy Valentine's family dinner on Sunday evening, a planning commission meeting, a relief society activity, some errands and emails and jobs to tackle, the Republican Lincoln dinner for Jordan and me, our final round (?) of Risk Legacy (game #15), some more decision making, a fancy brunch of English scones by Ellie and Jordan, another Star Wars movie party (we're making our way slooowly through these -- we've almost finished #3 and we started during Christmas break! :), and lots of talking and working and playing.

The Roof

The Christmas before Porter was born,  Jordan gave me a gift certificate for us to go to the Roof. It only took three years, but we last month we finally used that gift certificate! And, I even managed to make it a surprise for Jordan (which I am terrible at). April was visiting and was so great to watch all the kids while I met Jordan in Salt Lake as he finished up some meetings he'd had down there that day.

And we enjoyed a happy and peaceful and sweet dinner! We sat just a table or so away from when we'd been once before for an anniversary celebration. And we both remembered the little ledge where we had set Landon in his car seat carrier ( 9 years ago!)

I love this view of the temple. We were there just in time to see the bright day light, the sunset and the beautiful night-time lights of the temple.

I'm so grateful to be going through life with Jordan. I love him so!

Valentines

I have been loving this Valentine time. On February first, I got out all of my pink and red and heart decorations and have been so happy to see all these cheerful things around the house. This week, we've been working on class valentines which are so fun for me too!

 Ellie and I had a heart painting party (from this simple idea), and then she taped on pencils and pixie stix and carefully picked out a valentine for each child in her class. Landon and I worked yesterday afternoon on his star wars valentines (like these), with pixie stix lightsabers. Hooray for these fun little projects to do!