MsDetermined's first birthday celebration!

MsDetermined turned one year old yesterday! Grandma and Grandpa Hurd came over to help us celebrate, and she got to eat the traditional one-year birthday pink cookie. She attacked the cookie with more gusto than either of the other two kids did. In fact, her main strategy was leaning over and eating it from the top on down. She finally did pick up some pieces to eat. At the end, there were only crumbs.

She was also a little distracted when it came to opening her presents. Luckily, there were only two to open - it would have taken us forever otherwise. The box of uncirculated birth year coins from Grandma and Grandpa were a big hit; she opened and closed the box over and over again. And she also enjoyed learning how to play her new xylophone. It hurt Mom's ears, though, as there was one bar that was out of tune. That'll teach me to not try it at the store before I buy it. I'm trying to decide if I will try to exchange it or just live with it. :(

Summer 2008 - a little late!

What's the Occasion? A night away from the kids...

Paul and I returned this morning from a two-night getaway to the Logan, Utah area. You know how some vacations are three-day, two-night? Ours was one-day, two-night... as we got in late Thursday night and left early Saturday morning. We did get a chance to dine at two area restaurants: Firehouse Pizzeria and Hamilton's. At both places, the server asked us, "any special occasion?" Well, it sure felt like that to me; a night away from the kids is so RARE. We have to kind of cajole and persuade family members to take our three girls for even an hour or so. I'm pretty sure if we have more kids that we'll end up splitting them up just to make it manageable for someone to say yes.

Thankfully, however, my sister Heather was willing and able to watch our kids. She's a pro. And a very giving person. She's the only member of my family up this far, so I ask her fairly regularly for help, although I try not to make it a habit. I do appreciate her willingness when she can.

We stayed at The Providence Inn in Providence, Utah. It is a Bed and Breakfast in an old church building, and it definitely has character. Our vacation club paid for our stay, which was lovely, but had it been up to me, I probably wouldn't have chosen the room we ended up in. I thought it was the Duck Room, but come to find out, it's called the "Old Mill Pond." Everything had a duck motif. Everything. Paul didn't mind it. There was a ceiling jutting over on one side of the bed, and I had to take extra care not to bump my head when walking over on that side, but it was a fairly nice room with a jacuzzi tub, TV and DVD/VCR player (with free movies to "rent"), and a dedicated shower in the bathroom. No couch, though. The first night, we watched The Illusionist sprawled out on the bed, but that was a bit hard on the back for Paul. So the second night, our vantage point for 8 Seconds was the tub. We had to add hot water a few times, but it was much more comfortable. They brought us some free popcorn, but I was so full from dinner that I couldn't even taste it. However, I did grab a chocolate chip cookie downstairs, fresh out of the oven. Couldn't resist that.

The Providence Inn offers a yummy, full breakfast... made to order from a menu of five or six selections. Paul allowed me to eat some of his traditional scrambled eggs, hashed browns, bacon, and English muffin breakfast if I got the fruit and cream french toast, so I took advantage of that and we shared both meals. Of the two, raspberry french toast and apple strudel french toast, I liked the raspberry best.

The best part of our time away? Not having to be anywhere or take care of anyone. On Friday, after a late breakfast and some necessary phone calls, we went back to bed for a few hours. That was lovely. I guess we're sleep-deprived.

We drove around to see the leaves, we visited the used book shop and the Bluebird Cafe on Main Street, and went to the Carnegie Library in Smithfield to find out if there was a CNG (compressed natural gas) station in Logan. It was a lot of hanging out without a lot of responsibility, and very relaxing. It ended too soon. But we are happy to be back with the kiddos. We like them, too. :)

I don't have time to post pics, as I'm off to watch the first two episodes of HBO's John Adams on DVD. Maybe later... I did take some nice ones.

Playing with Wordle

So, wordle.net is getting passed around - it's a pretty fun tool that you can either enter words of your choosing into, or put in a URL, and it will create random word art for you. Here's a sample of this blog via Wordle:

MsDetermined is taking some steps

I'm notoriously bad at keeping baby books, so I hope that I can keep a general record of when milestones happen. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact day that MsDetermined started taking steps on her own, but it was a couple of weeks ago. Around the beginning of September. She still just takes a couple and then falls down on purpose, but it's a start. Her toes turn in, so she's not the most stable yet. She's getting started earlier - at nine months - than any of the other kids, however.

LittleMum's First Soccer Game

Instead of the first game being next week, as originally scheduled, we found out late last night that LittleMum's first soccer game would be today. So we ran to the sports goods store to pick up the required shin guards (they were fairly cleaned out, but we found one pair in her size) so we could be ready to send her on the field.

At the youngest ages, practices and games are held together; first, a half hour of practice, then the game. LittleMum did great in the practice! She kicked the ball all over the place, ran around, and kept asking the coach if they could do it again. Once the game started, however, she started to get a little intimidated by the speed of the game, the other girls trying to go the opposite direction with the ball, and needing to watch and follow the ball all the time. Not to mention that the other team was more practiced and aggressive. After a little while, she came over to us in tears. We got her back on the field one more time if Mommy would run around with her, but that didn't last very long. So she watched most of her first game, but she's a natural! She just needs to get some confidence and she'll do awesome!

LittleMum's First Day of School

I'm a little slow, because this is the second week of school. However, we did have a big first week of kindergarten last week! In spite of freaking out a little bit and not wanting to meet her teacher at Back To School Night the previous week, LittleMum was excited to go to school on her first day. She was all smiles and got right into the swing of things in the classroom.

NatureForce did too, or wanted to, at least. She picked up a pencil to sign her name like the big kids. Of course, I had to tell her that she was not staying because she wasn't quite old enough for school. Then we had a big tantrum in the kindergarten classroom amid the kindergartener / parent traffic. Even though I was holding MsDetermined, I had to pick up NatureForce (who had gone boneless) and drag her out into the hall. I ended up just putting her in the stroller as best I could so we could leave with whatever shred of dignity we had left.

One of LittleMum's classmates dads must have thought NatureForce was my kindergartener, because he said, "I'm glad I'm not the only one who's had to drag the kid kicking and screaming."

My favorite noise-making toy

DSCF1369
Originally uploaded by Sara's Pics

This Happy Stars piano has seen a lot of use since our oldest was a baby. You gotta love the dancing - and the music is pretty fun. I am normally not crazy about noise-making toys, but this one I actually like. I don't know if it's available any more.
http://snurl.com/happystars

A good pic to accompany the previous post

DSCF1368
Originally uploaded by Sara's Pics

Here's our little MsDetermined, ready to let go and start walking!

Will we have a walker soon?

My nearly-8-month-old, MsDetermined, is acting like she wants to be walking. She has been pulling herself up to stand for the last couple of weeks and stood by herself yesterday, a couple of times for a few seconds. It could still be a bit until she's taking steps by herself, but it seems a little soon!!!

Morning at the Hurds

So, the kids are so cute in their daddy's old t-shirts. I just thought I'd share some pics from this morning. The ugly flowered chair is ideal for reading together.

Blog redesign; come look!

I've redesigned the blog. Come look!

One other small change: I tried to make my kids more anonymous by replacing their names with pseudonyms. I've debated back and forth for a while, and finally decided that because my name is known and some of my other internet sites link to this one, I ought to take that one little precaution. The one thing I don't want to have happen is that some stranger can walk up to my daughter(s) and say, "Hi [firstname]. I'm a friend of your Mom's!" and engender some sort of trust. I'm sure it won't stop the very determined from finding out my kids' names, but at least they're a little more cloaked. It seems that the blogs where the parents' last names are not known may more safely use real names for their children. In an era of mommy-blogging and airing our dirty laundry online, it's really hard to say what we'll regret later, eh?

So... introducing LittleMum (because she acts like her little sisters' second mom, and also because she's a lot like me), NatureForce (I call her my little force of nature - she's my social daredevil), and MsDetermined (still getting to know the baby, but she definitely knows where she wants to go and exerts all effort to get there)!

I can't promise I'm going to be a more active blogger from now on, but I think part of my hesitancy before was because I hadn't yet decided about the privacy issue. I have, for now, and I think I'll be posting more frequently.

Some new silliness

MsDetermined is crawling all over the place, and very intrigued by the blanket hill on the floor. The hill contains her big sisters, of course.

Flickr as photo backup?

After a host of serious computer problems so far this year that has required the reinstallation of Windows on no less than three computers, I have been thinking seriously about data backup. I had a backup system in place - an external hard drive that included computer software that allowed for a one-touch, incremental backup. That was nice, but still required me to remember to do it regularly. Luckily, I lost no data with my recent computer problems. Still, it would be nice to have the assurance that even if we didn't have advance warning or I was less than diligent with my backups, we'd be covered.

I haven't yet completely worked out the details so that we're covered with everything, but for our photos, I believe I've found what I wanted. Flickr.com allows for unlimited upload space for pro accounts, which are only $25 a year. It keeps your original file and shares its API, which means that third-party developers have developed programs that will allow you to download your original file if your hard drive loses your pictures. Upload is easy and quick, and privacy is built in if you choose not to share your photos with the world. When you do want to share, it's quick and easy. In addition, Flickr has partnerships to allow you to do a lot of fun things with your photos - turn them into products, cards, photo prints, etc. Because I would be devastated if we lost our family photos, I am very happy that they're now safely hosted remotely. Thanks, Flickr.

It's a Winter Wonderland!

For all of you who didn't get any snow this year, or perhaps for those of you who just like to see fluffy white flakes, this will be fun! Take a look-see! This was the storm before last before last before last, or something like that...

Great trip!

From the night before Valentine's Day to President's Day evening, we went on a road trip with our three little ones. The first stretch of our trip, from home to pick up Daddy to drive to Mesquite, took over 12 hours (it's supposed to take about 5 and a half hours). Why? Not because of the kids. NOooooo... because of a freak blizzard and all the Utah drivers freaking out. Actually, it was pretty treacherous driving, so we were lucky to have made it safe and sound to our hotel in Mesquite at 3:30 a.m. (2:30 local Nevada time). The kids actually were great travelers. I would have some photos of the storm for you if I were not holding on the "omigosh" bar so tightly. Paul, you are a snow driving master.

Well, I might have more trip stuff later... I don't have a whole lot of time to post today.

Enough, Already!

This winter season, we have received (quite literally, it feels like) tons of snow. At first, through the months of November and December, snow removal was nonexistent at our house. You see, Paul left it undone as a matter of principle: we spent thousands to put a snow melt in, only to have it work a couple of storms and then quit on us. So to spite the dysfunctional boiler, Paul refused to shovel, and we didn't buy a snow blower because we owned a snow melt. It is frustrating, and I understand where he's coming from, however...!

In essence, we were inaccessible. Visitors would park down at the bottom of the steep driveway and risk their lives to walk up, or tromp through the snow to get to our front steps. When we had temperatures in the low 40s early in January and the ice started to melt, I took it upon myself to scrape off the remaining ice and slush so we could start fresh. It was a big job, and took a long time, but it felt good to see the cement again. The problem was, a big snow storm was expected the very next day, and it has snowed every few days since then. So I've been out on the driveway, shovel and scraper in hand, trying to get back down to the cement.

You can see my most recent efforts (yesterday morning's!) to the right. As you can see, the sun only ever hits the bottom during the winter, because it's on the north side of our house. *Sigh*

And, of course, we expect another big one tonight into tomorrow. It makes you want to curse the heavens, but then you don't because you realize that we will be grateful for the snow come summer, when that's where we get our water. And really, it's beautiful to look at. Maybe I should just go buy a snowblower...

Our little one

Cute photos of our newest little one! She's two months old, and she's a happy, smiling baby. What more could we ask for?

Finally! The baby's hospital picture!

I haven't posted about our new baby yet, because when I stopped posting last summer, we hadn't yet announced our pregnancy to cyberspace. And then, I "blogfade"d. So, an email in my inbox gave me a great excuse to make our announcement post.

MsDetermined is here! She is actually two months old now. And it only took the hospital portrait company two months to get me access to her photo. I called a few times, they called me a couple of times, to no avail. At first they couldn't find her, then they could see her but I couldn't. They wanted me to order photos, which I was hesitant to do sight unseen. "Trust me," the rep said. "It's adorable."

You can see it here!

Tribute to a Prophet

From the LDS Church Newsroom:

President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through twelve years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97.

President Hinckley was the 15th president in the 177-year history of the Church and had served as its president since 12 March 1995.

The Church president died at his apartment in downtown Salt Lake City at 7:00 p.m. Sunday night from causes incident to age. Members of his family were at his bedside. A successor is not expected to be formally chosen by the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until after President Hinckley’s funeral within the next few days.

A man that I dearly love and respect has just passed away. Although President Hinckley was 97 years of age, he has had so much energy and vitality that his death came as a bit of a surprise. Of course there is some sadness, because we will miss him! However, it's hard to feel sad for long, because he has rejoined his dear wife, Marjorie, and other loved ones who have passed on.

President Hinckley always had a wonderful, gentle humor about him. He would deliver humorous statements with a twinkle in his eye and a little smile. His testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ was unparalleled. He reached out to leaders of other world religions, and was respected in return. He helped us feel encouraged and enabled to do our best as we lived every day. He was a wonderful man!

KSL TV in Salt Lake City broadcast a biography video last night, which you can see here: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=&nid=520

Get to know the man:

To those living gluten-free

I came across an intesting blog today in a rather roundabout way. I had recently watched Yes: Songs From Tsongas on Netflix, and looked it up on Amazon to decide for or against buying it. A strange recommendation popped up under "other customers suggested these items." Right next to all the Yes albums, there was a book entitled Gluten-Free Girl. Because my sister has celiac disease and has to eat a gluten-free diet, I was intrigued and checked it out. The listing on Amazon led me to her blog, glutenfreegirl.com. What a find! Shauna James Ahern has been living gluten-free since 2005, ever since she started to suspect celiac disease to be the cause of her multitude of health troubles. Her writing is poignant and fascinating. From her first post:

As soon as I had my blood drawn, ten days ago, I cut gluten out of my diet. And that’s really fricking hard, it turns out. Gluten is the elastic protein in wheat, rye, barley, triticale, spelt, and possibly oats. So that means bread, cookies, pies, cereal, cinnamon rolls, pasta, and oatmeal. That’s hard enough. But it also turns out that gluten hides insidiously in almost every processed food, disguised as modified food starch..., hydrolized vegetable oil, caramel color, dextrin, and even natural flavors. I have to read every box, decipher every food, ponder every bite I eat.

The impact of cutting out gluten from her diet was immediate and dramatic:

Here’s the amazing part. As soon as I cut gluten out of my diet, the same day, I started feeling better. The pain diminished. I started to eat a bit more food at one time. I started to feel more clear. Every day that passed convinced me more. On the third day without gluten, I looked up and realized I was clear. It was as though I had been wearing smudgy contacts for years, and someone had just cleaned them for me. I’ve been in a brain fog for years. Years. And now, I feel clear.

My sister Carrie has been living gluten-free for several years now. Celiac disease, or more accurately, celiac sprue, is woefully underdiagnosed. Carrie lost several unborn children and had a host of other health issues, not knowing that it was food that was making her sick! Now, thankfully, she's healthy and feeling good. I remember talking to her once and realizing how vigilant she needs to be about everything that goes into her mouth. It's a hyperconscious way to eat, and so different than the way normal Americans eat--too much, too quickly, and stuff that's not really good for the body, all without really thinking about it.

The subtitle of Shauna's book is How I Found the Food that Loves Me Back. Rather than bemoaning the lack in her diet, the life she lives and food she makes and eats is full of flavor and passion. I think we can all take a lesson from that.

We're back!

After a short stint on our own hosted domain, I've come back to blogger. Why? Well, I was facing a manual upgrade with Wordpress, and I just decided that it wasn't worth the trouble and that I could just use blogger - they would automatically upgrade me all the time! Also, because I'm using so many google things and many of them have blogger built right in, it will be easier for me to post more often. Because it's been FOREVER, I hope to post a little update post soon. We do have news...