Twelve Photos on 3.12.12

My "theme" this month is color.

• I love the way the girl's rooms turned out—that's another post to come, but here's a sneak peek.
• I'm also so excited to see a few flowers and green leaves sprouting up and can't wait for Spring!
• I stocked up on lots of colorful fruits and veggies at Target, and will be making yummy Spring Rolls this week.
• Ainsley spent most of the morning coloring—right now she's into Bratz Girls' coloring pages (I can't stand them, but I guess it's better than watching TV all morning).
• I painted the girls' fingernails green for St. Patrick's Day.
• Rob very grudgingly agreed to let me take a photo of him wearing the new shirt I picked up at Costco—I love the color!
• Robbie had a water polo game tonight. Water polo is seriously fun to watch, even though it makes me tired just watching. :) They won.
• Finally, I found Joey reading in his room, instead of putting on his pj's. No collage of photos representing this day would be complete without piles of dirty clothes. Just keeping it real.

Deceivingly blank...

It's not the first time I've skipped blogging for a whole month. But this time I hardly took any photos, which is unusual. 288 photos, on only eight days. Here's what I captured:

1st

Robbie had a persistant cough for months, and was treated for infection and walking pneumonia with no results before I finally made an appointment with an allergist. It turns out he's not allergic or asthmatic, but the appointment still did the trick...he stopped coughing.

5th

It wasn't the first snow of the year, but maybe the deepest. Ellie and Ainsley played outside for hours.

11th

The elementary school was out for the day, so we staged a photo on 11/11/11 at 11:11 a.m.

19th

We were able to attend the Draper Temple, where Davy and Emma were sealed. Oh, and the Utes beat Washington State in overtime. :)

20th

Ralph told us about our Marsh ancestors at the Backman Family History Night.

21st

Ainsley lost her first tooth! The slacker tooth fairy didn't make an appearance for four whole days though...

24th

Thanksgiving! Our favorite holiday. We had a fabulous day and dinner in St. George at Ralph and Judy's. We were grateful to enjoy the company of Jake, the Stringhams, Grandpa & Grandma Backman, the Rasmussens and the Knaubs. It was my first year ever making my Grandma's fabulous candied yams, and they were a success!

25th

We had a fun game of dodgeball with the family. The kids told me earlier in the month that their favorite Thanksgiving tradition is going to St. George. No wonder, they spent hours playing outside with their cousins.

28th

We put up the Christmas tree a little early this year, since I was hostessing a Relief Society dinner on December 1st.

So, why the lack of photos? No, it was not restraint on my part. I was pretty much overwhelmed with daily responsibilities.

Here's what doesn't show up on this calendar: carpools, ballet lessons, piano lessons, early mornings at the gym, volunteering at the school, chess club, helping kids with homework x4, Webelos den meetings, pack meeting, Young Men's, volleyball, Achievement days, church, bishopric meetings, two book group meetings, primary practice & program, Beehive books, babysitting, SEPs, chiropractor, eye doctor, two birthday parties, PTA movie day, assembling 80 gifts for OJH piano donors and making dessert for the piano concert. Not to mention packing, unpacking, cleaning and trying to keep everyone fed & in clean clothes. More than I could fit on this little calendar, and stuff I'm trying to repress at this point.

Rob tells me my only New Year's resolution should be to say no. Of course then he called me to be a gospel doctrine teacher. No time commitment there. My first lesson was on December 6th, on...the Book of Revelation! So I also spent a couple of weeks in November preparing for that. Hard to believe I didn't fit in some time for blogging or Christmas cards. Maybe next November.

Chalk Art Festival

After Colin's blessing (see this post), we decided to take advantage of the fact that we were already downtown and go see the chalk art festival at Gateway. We always stop for any fountains, Joey is especially enamored with them, and usually pretending that he is Percy Jackson, controlling the water.

This was one of the first pictures we saw, and it was probably the boys' favorite.

I loved this one:

And this one:

We got to see an artist at work. Looks like a messy job.

I got a photo with the "free hugs" people because my brother in the family I lived with in France does this in France. The girls wanted to know why they wanted free hugs. :)

This was one of the girls' favorites, and they thought it was fun to see the artist too.

It was fun. Definitely something we'd do again.

It must be the end of summer...

That usually when we try to pack in a few last fun activities before school starts.
As usual, Melissa is a few steps ahead of me, and has already covered the zoo trip here. She mentioned how great it is that each kid (okay, except Peter, really sorry about that) matches up with one of their cousins, not only in age, but in true friendship. I can't remember the last day that Ainsley hasn't asked to play with Duffy.
I don't have much to add, except a photo of Ellie and Amelia. I'll make sure to put this in your file, Melis.
I have at least three really great photos of Joey and Samantha—they're photogenic, and posers too.
My only photo of Robbie and Jonas isn't very good, I have to steal Melissa's. I took this one because even at the zoo these two can manage to find a screen to play with.

Happy Birthday Dan

Rob tells me that eating at El Farol's is a family tradition that goes back almost 30 years. We're happy to keep that tradition going. We especially love the fact that all of our kids sit at the kid's table now.
Tonight we were celebrating the big 4-0 for Dan, plus Lisa and Judy's April birthdays. This shot captures him in his element, as "Uncle Dan." It seems like every family party he's got at least four nieces or nephews hanging on him at any given time.

Places we go, things we do

It's almost impossible to avoid extra purchases at Target or Costco, so I try to minimize our trips there, but they are definitely places we go on an all-too-regular basis. Ainsley asks if we can go almost daily. Today I was able to use a much needed grocery outing as an incentive for her to shower and get dressed. Lately she wants to stay in her jammies all day long. Hmmm, so do I for that matter. But we did make it out, and even succeeded in only buying one thing that wasn't on our list—a box of Teddy Grahams. An acceptable reward for Ainsley's good behavior, and way healthier than most of the treats she requests.
Also, in the things we do category: we play bingo. No, not the kind with a scorecard, just the spotting of yellow vehicles. It was driving me crazy for a while, because the kids would fight over who saw that yellow car first, or how many they had scored. Rob introduced a nice twist by only claiming bingos for someone else. So now they say "Bingo for Mom!" or each other. The receiver often returns the bingo to the giver, so now it's a contest to see who can give away the most. I can't complain about that.

Happy Birthday Jake

At Christmastime Ralph and Judy mentioned that Rich and Sandra might be here next year for Christmas, and I said that was great and we should try to get a family picture taken while they're here. Jake turns to me and says, "Is that REALLY the first thought that went through your head?" Yep. And that's why I brought my camera along for tonight's birthday dinner, much to the annoyance of Photo Scrooge and probably everyone else there. You can all thank me in fifty years. In addition to capturing the memory of Jake's birthday I'm documenting one of our yummiest family traditions, eating at El Farol's. Thanks again Ralph and Judy!

Also, I couldn't resist pulling out another photo from the archives in honor of Jake's birthday. This would have been taken about a month after he turned ten, fourteen years ago. As you can see, he hasn't changed a bit. We love you Jake!

A fond farewell

Tonight we went out to celebrate Joey's reflections win and to say goodbye to sugar for a while. We have definitely had too many treats over the past few weeks, and it's time to focus on healthy, nutrient dense foods. January is going to be the month of the vegetable.

Check it out (pun intended)

One of the things I'm hoping to achieve with the daily photo is to better document our day-to-day activities, not just the big events. It worked tonight—I took my camera with us to the library, and only got a couple of weird looks as I snapped pictures there. It's one of our favorite places. And no, I don't feel compelled to limit myself to only one daily photo.