Lots of Pictures

Here are some pictures of the children from the last few months:

This is love.

One of the suckers is actually Jade's. She gave it to Bristol so she could have a taste, and then Bristol didn't want to return it.

Poor Jade. In July, we had her tested for nut allergies, and she is allergic to pecans and walnuts. They didn't test for hazelnuts, but clearly she is allergic to those too. On this day, I was toasting hazelnuts and she was holding one. She said she didn't eat any and I am pretty sure she didn't, but she must have touched her face or something. It's not really clear in this picture, but she has red welts on her face (especially around her eyes) and her eyes are watering.

Bristol loves this backpack; sometimes she and Jade fight over it.

The camera lens was dirty, thus the hazy quality of this photo.

Bristol loves her toothbrush but accomplishes very little actual teethbrushing.

This is what we keep in our pantry.

Jade going to preschool.

Brooke is getting to be such a good reader. We are so proud of her. Today she told me she loves reading.

I think that Bristol had to skip one her naps that day for some reason, and she fell asleep at dinnertime.

Catch-up

It seems like every post I start saying that it's been a while since I last posted, but this time that isn't the case. I actually wrote an entry last Monday. However, it's just me complaining about having lived in Yuma for the last two years (in case you haven't read it). I am pretty sure that most of the people who read my blog (I have no idea who or how many) are more interested in the children and what they are doing rather than listening to my complaints. So in that case, it has been a little while since I posted about that so here you go:

Halloween

Brooke was a princess, and Jade was a mermaid. Bristol was a witch. I decided that I was not going to buy any costumes this year; we were just going to use what we have. That worked out pretty good. I spent about $13 to buy a few accessories for their costumes, and I think I saved about $50 by not buying all new ones.

Like my smile in this picture? I wasn't quite ready when Trent took it.

Bristol's First Birthday

When Bristol was six months old, I said that her first six months went by quickly, but these last six months went by even faster. I can't believe that she is already one year old!

I made gumpaste flowers for the cake. I had never made gumpaste decorations before, and I wanted to try them because I liked the way they look. While cake decorating from piping frosting can certainly look good, I have to say that I really like the gumpaste. It's faster, cleaner-looking and way less of a mess. Well, it does take some time for the flowers to dry (a day or two), but actually creating them was pretty quick.

Some of the things that she can do now are:

*walk really well

*climb off the bed or couch herself

*eat with a spoon and drink from a cup pretty good (In fact, everytime she sees us getting a drink at the water cooler, she hurries over and we give her the cup with a little water in it.)

*wave hello

*point at things

Some of Bristol's likes are:

*water -- She loves taking a bath and is constantly sticking her face in it the water to get a drink, despite my protest.

*playing with her sisters

*going down the slide that she got for her birthday

*books -- She pulls them out of the bookshelf a lot and likes to look at them.

*putting things around her neck -- She is always finding things to put around her neck (not all the way around, just draped from one shoulder, around the back of her neck, to her other shoulder). This one concerns me a little because she tries to use jumpropes, ties, cords (even cords that are attached to things like lamps), anything pretty much. The strangulation risk there concerns me so I keep a close eye on her when she is doing that.

*going outside -- She always tries to escape when someone is going out. Since the weather has cooled, we can definitely spend a lot more time outside, though.

*people -- She isn't afraid to go up to others and smile at them.

*car keys -- the real ones, toy keys are not an adequate substitute

Some of her dislikes are:

*her carseat or for that matter, being restrained in any way

*having things taken away from her -- No child likes this, but she throws a big fit, crying on and on when we have to take something from her.

Bristol has been so fun to have in our home. The girls like playing with her most of the time, and she and Jade are starting to play together when Brooke is at school. She is a pretty happy girl as long as she is well-rested and fed. I have to say that I am pretty happy too when she gets her sleep because she sleeps for about eleven hours at night and for about three to four hours during the day (split between two naps).

Oh yeah, noticeably absent from her pictures, at least to me, is her hair. She is our Miss Baldy, but she has been working on her teeth. Bristol has her eighth tooth coming up now.

Two Years, Ugh

Well, as of yesterday, we have been here in Yuma for two years, which is exactly two years more than I wanted to be here. So why am I here? I often wonder if it would have been better to have just stayed in Idaho and held on until the economy improved. Now it seems like we will never get back. Over the next couple of years, Idaho is projected to be the #1 state for job growth (or something like that) so maybe there is some promise in that.

It's not that I hate Yuma completely, though I certainly don't love it. Rather, it's that we spend most holidays and birthdays with just Trent, the children and myself. Holiday meals become a lot more work (for me) in that situation, and it's kind of lonely. Visiting family is now quite an ordeal and a sacrifice. Do we want to spend a whole bunch of money on plane tickets or sit in the car for two days? I used to think that it was a long drive from Boise to Denver, but now I would gladly do that. With Brooke in school, our opportunities for visiting are even more limited. It's also that we have a house in Idaho that we don't even get to enjoy, but instead someone else does, paying us substantially less than our mortgage payment. Meanwhile we get to live in a rental here, which is a house I really don't like. When we first moved here, I said that the house was pretty nice, but I was soon cured of that thinking upon discovering a host of problems with the home, like a $350 power bill in the summer months just to keep the house at 80+ degrees. I could go on and on about the house. Speaking of the summer, we spend most of it indoors with the blinds closed (blinds open just means an even hotter house). So for the weeks that Brooke is out of school, we are stuck in a hot house a lot -- not fun.

There are lots more things that I could say about why I don't like being here, but I don't want to spend all night at the computer. It just saddens me that we are here, and I am not so sure that it has really improved our lives in any way that is important. Trent's job has given us more financial rewards than we anticipated, but I am unconvinced that that is a worthy trade-off. I do appreciate that we have good, nice people in our ward. I am glad that we at least have that. All in all, I would rather be in a less than stellar city with a great ward than be in an awesome city but have a terrible ward. However, not to marginalize the people we know here, I also really liked the people in our previous ward and the place in which we lived.

So I guess this post is just one big lament. I do recognize the good things we have in our life, like that Trent has a job, our children, the gospel, etc. I know that things could be a lot worse, as they are for some people. I am just hoping and praying that we can again enjoy all those things back home (and that it can be soon). I certainly do appreciate a little bit more the things we had to leave. Although, I did appreciate them before we moved -- that's why I didn't want to leave!