It's been a lovely week. Jared is in his sourdough era, Jack continues to feel less anxious and is sleeping better, Alice has gotten quite proficient on her scooter, and I'm down to our final 10 boxes of my unpacking journey.
Yesterday morning Jack made a "bunkbed tent" and wanted to have our family go "camping" in there before bed. So we all piled into Jack's top bunk, draped with blankets and filled with Christmas lights. We sang some camp songs and read some books and it was a lovely time. It's good to have moments like this after busy, attitude-filled weekends. Jack desperately wanted me to sleep on his bottom bunk for this campout. I didn't want to because it's a less comfortable than my own bed, but I reminded myself that I only get to enjoy one childhood with my children, and it was totally worth it because Jack had his best night sleep in months and months.
Jack has been spending a lot of time with his classmate/neighbor friend Theo. They run back and forth to each other's houses most days. Jack picks Theo up on his way to school so they can finish their short walk together. Theo has gone on one or two outings with us, and on Saturday Jack went with Theo's family to run their Saturday errands. Sometimes I get annoyed when Jack unexpectedly comes home from school with Theo because I'd been hoping for a family outing to a park or something, but honestly our afternoons go much smoother when Jack has a friend here, and I remind myself frequently that this was my dream for Jack when we made the decision to move to Utah. I pinch myself that he is living out the "walking to school and back, biking around the neighborhood, running back and forth to a good friend's house or the park" life that I wasn't sure would ever realistically be possible. Happy for him and our family.
Hmmm what else...I got stuck in my temple dress in the changing room this week for a solid 15 minutes. It was bad enough that the blood flow to my arms had been cut off and I was about ready to yell for someone to bust down my door and cut me out with a pair of scissors😂 Luckily I was able to get it off just before it was time for me to cause a scene. In other dress-related news, Jared bought me the summery linen dress of my dreams that has become my new personality. Alice continues to say the sweetest, funniest things. (We just got back from the park, where she said to a little boy playing near her, "Hi kid!") With Jack less anxious in the evenings and us changing up the bedtime routine, Jared and I are finally getting to spend some time together on weeknights. It's a wonderful thing, and crazy that we went a full half year without that time together. And now for some pictures from our week:
Alice has been saying so many funny things lately. When Jack was her age I would meticulously write down and record all the funny things he said. With Alice there are so many other things going on that I haven't made the time to do that yet. Until today! So without further ado, here are some of the funny things Alice says on the regular:
1. When Alice wants something and we say no, she gives us the biggest puppy dog eyes and says, "Just one time?" Often followed by, "Tiny bit?" with her fingers held close to each other.
2. "Setty, et, go!"
3. "Luffy, cute!" Meaning she thinks her Lovey is cute, and then she gives it a kiss.
4. When she's nervous or sometimes even distraught: "Haha, hehe, hoho!" With her eyes squinting shut.
5. "Me no sad, me 'appy!" (Whenever we tell her it's time for bed or anyone mentions they are tired.)
6. "Mama Baby." (When she wants me to pretend to be a baby.)
7. Not anything strange, but she is exceedingly polite. Lots of, "Zzzz?" (please) and "Tay-too" (thank you) and "Gelcome" (You're welcome).
8. "Oopsie daisy!"
9. "Oh! Okayyyy!" With the funniest, most excited high-pitched voice inflection whenever someone says something she's happy/excited about.
10. "Kah-kah, hmph." With a grumpy face and a foot stomp, to let me know that Jack is in a grumpy mood (haha)
11. "Me supa hungwy!" When she's, surprise, super hungry.
Speaking of Jack, here are two bonus Jack-isms. I keep a note on my phone of funny quotes from Jack. The last ones I wrote down were from early 2024:
1. While playing a board game called Word on the Street, as he was just learning to read: "This card says, 'A place to invest monkey.' I know! The zoo!"
2. "Mom, I know who you used to drive far to kiss. Dad. That's literally all. Or wait I forgot, you have brothers!"😅
And now for some pictures from our week:
Another Utah Spring Break in the books. The last two years, when we were living in Washington, we ended up making spur-of-the-moment Spring Break trips to Utah for job hunting and other reasons. This year it was nice to enjoy a spring break in Utah without having to drive 30 hours.
We spent the first few days on playdates and trying to get back up to speed on potty training. (Not much luck there. I knew our easy-breezy first go at potty training was too good to be true.) Then we did an ambitious day trip to Goblin Valley to meet up with cousins and my parents for a fun day. The next day we rested up and then hit up our local rec center to swim. And on Saturday we spent the afternoon after conference at Lagoon! Jared's parents gifted us season passes for our Christmas gift this year. I didn't even know Lagoon existed until I was a teenager, so I'd never had any experience with the kid section, but there were lots of great rides that the kids loved. Next time we will go right at opening so we won't have to deal with as long of lines. Alice really couldn't grasp the concept of the lines. With kids I'm grateful to have a season pass so that when we go, we can make it a 2-hour trip and then feel fine about heading back home, instead of trying to stay all day to make the most of a day pass.
Lest you think Spring Break was all good times, we did finish up Sunday afternoon taking refuge at my parents' house because we were all spring break'd out and having cute lil' MTBs. So grateful to live close to them and be able to crash their Sunday dinner with very little notice. They're the best. And now for some pictures:
