San Fro-disco

Joseph's little sister, Hannah, has been with us a few weeks, helping us out with the kids, among other things. She spent the first half of her life growing up in St. George, and the other half growing up on Maui. There are a lot of things she's never experienced in her short life, so while we've got her, we're going to take her on some fun excursions.

It would be silly of us to live so close to such a neat place as San Francisco and not take her into the city, so we took her there. Some of the people in Joseph's office have also been bugging him to bring in the baby to show him off, so it was killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

There are so many cool things to see and do in SF, that one day is not going to cover them all. We also have four other kids, so I just chose the highlights.

First, we went up to the top of Joseph's building. I would have liked to have gone to Coit Tower, but that would not have been feasible with the stroller and all those stairs.

They've all got Dum-Dums in their mouths and are making funny faces.

What a bunch of goofballs!

Next, we walked over to Chinatown, which is just a couple blocks away.

Asher poses in front of the gate.

Hey look, I do exist! It's nice having someone else to help me take pictures.

I love the atmosphere here. And the architecture.

Window shopping for crowns and tiaras.

The six of us with the stroller took up a lot of room on the crowded sidewalk, so after we got our fill in Chinatown, we backtracked a little way to get to Yerba Buena Gardens. The kids had a ton of fun walking through the financial district. The city can also be a playground.

I like the juxtaposition of the older and newer buildings.

Asher posed for me and gave me this look when I told him to smile.

Playing on some steps.

The kids probably would have been happy just playing here and skipping Yerba Buena.

Cute girl.

I'm not sure what this pose is that Moses gave me. Silly boy.

Walking through the city with the kids, I felt like I was trying to herd cats, especially when it came to Asher. He refused to sit in the stroller and walked everywhere. He would chase dirty pigeons, into the street. He had to touch every parked car. He wouldn't watch where he was going and passersby would suddenly have to swerve out of their way to avoid running into him. He would stop in the middle of the sidewalk, or the street as we were crossing, and sit or lay down when he got tired. I'd try to pick him up, but he'd do that thing, you know, the one where a toddler suddenly becomes a sack of bricks. It was exhausting. But we eventually made it to Yerba Buena.

I love this picture of these two kids.

This is a neat sculpture. Hannah and the kids would sit on the bench and the pressure of their weight would make the statue on the globe sit. When they'd stand, the statue would stand.

Close up of the statue.

These big slides are really fun to slide down.

I like this action shot of Moses running around.

Hannah had to accompany Asher down one of the big slides.

Making music.

You'd think he'd be tired after walking all through the city, but he wasn't.

An Asher sized slide.

"Mommy, take a picture of me up here!"

Hannah and I were thoroughly exhausted from all the walking and herding of small children, so we were excited that all we had left to do was get back in the car and drive. Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. At rush hour. It was rather relaxing.

Akiko and her favorite auntie Hannah.

Apparently, my kids think the GGB is the place to make silly faces...

... and I didn't get the memo.

SF was swathed in sunlight on an otherwise overcast day.

Close up from across the bay.

I love the fog rolling across the top of the bridge. Such a neat effect.

There were tons of things I would have liked to have taken Hannah to see that we didn't have time for or just weren't possible with all the kids and the stroller: Fisherman's Wharf, Coit Tower, Alcatraz, riding the cable cars, etc. And then on our way out of the city, I forgot that I wanted to take Hannah to see some painted ladies. D'oh!

It was still a fun day and Hannah got to see a lot of neat things in the city.

Hannah is a Palindrome

Poor Moses. He kind of gets left out of things. Simon's been getting a lot of press because he's the newborn. Asher has been written about a bit because he's been so cute with Simon. Akiko just finished first grade. Where has Moses been during all this?

Moses is the kind of kid that goes off on his own all the time. While I'm busy chasing Asher around or taking care of the baby, Moses is off in his own little world: playing video games, playing with Legos, drawing or writing or reading in his room, etc. He's kind of like the invisible boy. He only comes out when he needs me.

I absolutely love this kid to pieces, though. He's super sweet, kind, meek, loving, sensitive, quiet, silly, imaginative, and incredibly intelligent.

Before Simon was born, the first thing Moses would do when he woke up was come into my room and tell me, "Mommy! It's time for your morning snuggle time!" and crawl into bed with me, where we would snuggle for a few minutes and talk before we'd get up to get him breakfast.

Since the baby and I have been home, we've had very few morning snuggles. I asked him why once and he told me he's afraid to snuggle with me because he's afraid he'll accidentally bump my tender belly. I'm also frequently already snuggling with Simon when he comes in to the bedroom in the morning (actually, I'm usually feeding the baby, but that counts as snuggling, too).

Since I've been feeling better lately, Moses and I find other times to have our snuggle time. It melts my heart that he was so concerned about my comfort that he "paused" our snuggle time until I was feeling better.

Like I mentioned before, Moses is incredibly smart. He has been able to do simple arithmetic problems with positive and negative integers for quite a while now. He's sounding out words and writing phonetically. He's going to be so far ahead of the other kids when he finally gets into kindergarten, not this fall, but next. Bleh.

Last night, during dinner, we ended up teaching the kids about palindromes. So right after Joseph and I were done explaining what they were and coming up with an example or two, Moses jumped into the conversation and stated, "Poop is a palindrome."

Joseph and I stopped and laughed. We were both so amazed and amused that Moses would just come up with something like this on his own. Normally, we don't encourage "poop talk" at the dinner table, but this time we made an exception.

We really just cannot get over how fast Moses picks up on concepts. He came up with three or four other examples of palindromes. Akiko got frustrated that she was having trouble coming up with any at first, but felt better after she finally did.

Moses sure is amazing, though, and full of surprises.

Oh! Did you think this post was going to be about Hannah? Sorry to disappoint.

Shaving Cream Day

Akiko's last day of first grade has finally arrived!

Akiko and Mrs. C.
Akiko made the candy lei that her teacher is wearing around her neck.

When I was in elementary, the last day of school was called "Shaving Cream Day." The kids from the junior high got out about an hour earlier than the elementary and would come down the hill and spray cream and silly string on as many little kids as they could. I never got creamed, and neither did my siblings, that I can recall, but I remember seeing some kids covered head to toe in it. I wonder if they've banned the practice. I'm sure they have.

Anyway, Akiko has grown so much this last year. When she was in kindergarten, I would do her hair every morning. She would have a different hairdo every single day. The girls in her class noticed.

I used to do her hair all the time at the beginning of this year, too. Then I got pregnant and getting out of bed in the morning became a chore for me. I would at least brush her hair for her from the side of the bed. Eventually, Akiko slowly took that over for me, too.

Every once in a while, I would find her in the bathroom with an arsenal of hair clips and headbands as she practiced different hairstyles on herself. Now she and her hair are all on her own. Of course, brushing her own hair became a million times easier when we chopped off a good seven inches or so last spring.

I promise, this post is not all about hair. That just happened to be a long tangent. Sorry.

Akiko's reading and writing skills have taken off. Mrs. C. really loved Akiko's writing and would often use her journal entries as examples for the rest of the class to follow. We loved reading things that Akiko wrote that she brought home from school. While we throw most of the stuff away that she brings home from school, some of them we had to keep because they were just so funny or really well written.

For example, one of her workbook problems said, "Write a number sentence using the number 5."

So, Akiko wrote, "5 had a baby. She was happy. The end." Funny, right?

I think the number sentence was supposed to read something like "5+4=9." I like Akiko's sentence better.

Akiko has also stated many times that her favorite subject is math. It's been neat to see her skills take off in that curriculum as well.

I've loved watching how much she's grown and progressed in all areas. She's always been pretty independent, but it's really manifested this year. I bought her a pair of laced shoes a couple months ago, showed her how to tie them once, and she got it right off the bat.

We're really proud of Akiko and all that she's learned this last year.

Now...

Let summer begin!!!

Withdrawals

Joseph went back to work in the office yesterday. I'm having withdrawals. I miss having him here. It's not just for the help he provides. I just physically miss having him here. So does his best buddy Asher. I really love my husband.

Quick story: On the morning of our anniversary last Thursday, Akiko asked Joseph to wake her up early so she could make us breakfast in bed. So, Joseph woke her up, but she was so tired because it was so much earlier than she was used to. She had to ask Joseph to make her breakfast first, in order to wake her up more, so she could send him back to bed and make frozen waffles for us. Isn't she the sweetest silliest thing?

I'm really glad Joseph was able to take paternity leave. I'm really glad we live in a state that mandates it and that Joseph works for an awesome company that allowed him to take the full time off. They even sent us a bunch of barbecue meat as a congratulatory baby present. It was tasty and we found out the kids really like sausage and ribs.

I'm still not on my own with the four kids, though, thank heavens. We flew Joseph's little sister in from Maui for a few weeks. We'd keep her here the whole summer if we could, but she's got prior obligations that she needs to be back on the island for.

This week is Akiko's last week of school. She gets out on Thursday. Late, I know. I think we're out later than everyone else in the country. So, we've just kind of been sitting around waiting for her school to end so we can kick off our summer.

I've got lots of things planned, and I hope we'll be able to accomplish most of them. We've got our summer camp co-op scheduled. I plan on taking the kids to a pool and on a hike at least once a week. I've also got one major outing (Jelly Belly factory, zoo, a day in San Fran, etc.) planned for every week.

I'm not sure how I'm going to pull it all off with the baby in tow, but the thought of sitting around in our sauna of a house all summer really bums me out. Actually, it practically makes me start sweating just thinking about it. Yuck!

I mostly just want to create fun memories for the kids, too. That's what summer is about, right?

I honestly don't know how often I'll be posting during the summer or if it's going to end up being one of those giganto recap posts when school starts up again in August. We'll see.

Anyway, I don't have much to say, so I'll just leave you all with a few pictures I've taken of mostly the baby in the last little while. You can see for yourself how much he's grown (and gotten cuter).

Asher and I were alone at home with the baby, so we played with him on the floor. Well, Asher played with him while I took pictures.

I just think Asher looks cute in this picture and thought I'd share it.

Doesn't this melt your heart?

If that isn't a mischievous glint in his eye, I don't know what is.

Trying to turn. I told him it's too soon. Simon concurred.

Sticking out his tongue at us. Silly boy!

See how much he's grown (i.e. gotten chubblier) in one short month?

Play time with daddy.

Anniversary Countdown

8

years we've been married.

7

apartments/houses we've lived in.

6

times we've moved.

5

times we've gone to the hospital.

(four births, one ER visit)

4

beautiful children have entered our family.

3

states we've lived in.

2

car purchases.

1

eternal marriage.

Sorry for the ultra old picture of us, but it's one that I really like and I don't have anything current yet.

Happy 8th Anniversary Joseph!

I love you!

Out and About

So, how many of you read the title in a Canadian accent: "Oat 'n' aboat?"

That's just a minor glimpse into the inner workings of my mind. I know I'm a nerd.

Anyway...

I was involved in a discussion with a group of my girlfriends right before Simon was born. We were talking about how soon we took our babies out into the world after they were born. We all seemed to have differing opinions on the matter. Some waited two months. Some waited one. We all had different reasons why we did what we did. No one person was right or wrong.

Me? I tend to take my newborns out immediately. I get cabin fever and as long as strangers aren't unnecessarily trying to touch or get too close to my baby, I'm not too concerned about the germ issue. I mean, I've got older kids at home that are constantly trying to manhandle the baby, but in that case, they're family germs. The baby is already exposed to them. Does that make sense? It seems a little odd to me now that I see it written down, but in my mind, the logic is sound.

Akiko and Moses were both born on Tuesdays. We were at church the next Sunday. Asher had to wait a week. He was born on a Friday. We were home on Saturday, but we had a rough night that night and slept through church the next morning.

This time around, I haven't been to church in four weeks. I've missed the entire month of May. Needless to say, I miss church. I miss doing my calling. I miss Primary. I miss the kids. I miss taking the sacrament. I missed the kids singing to me in sacrament meeting for Mother's Day (although, Akiko and Moses sang to me at home instead). I miss getting that special feeling you get when you hear a great talk or lesson. Et cetera.

Of course, this is all because I've had to recover from a major surgery. Simon and I haven't really been going out a whole lot. There has been the occasional short trip to the store. There was also the trip to the doctor's office for a check up. But mostly, the little guy and I have just been hanging out at home.

Last Monday, Memorial Day, was Simon's first big outing. Our ward was having a barbecue picnic at a local park. I kinda wanted to go since I hadn't seen any of my friends in a month unless they came by my house to visit.

It was our first outing as an entire family with Joseph, me, and all four kids. It was pretty exhausting. You have to get all the kids ready and get them all loaded into the van. Then you have to park further away from the park than you'd like because you're late and have to walk a way to the party, find a spot near your friends, help get all the kids and yourself some food...

By the time I sat to eat, I was already pooped. We were there for only an hour or so before we called it quits and headed back home. The kids didn't mind. They got fed and got to play with all their friends, so they were happy. They left with no complaints, thank heavens.

It was nice to get out then. Test the waters, so to speak. But it was too soon for me.

This morning/afternoon, Akiko's school had their big fundraiser walk-a-thon fair thingy. I had originally asked my friend to take Akiko for me, but then Moses decided he wanted to go, too. I didn't want to impose two of my kids on her when she already had three of her own to watch after, so I told her I'd just come along with my own kids and meet her there.

So, I took Akiko, Moses, and Simon to the school this morning. We walked. I kind of wish I'd driven, but I hate the thought of driving there when it's so close, even if I'm not feeling all that great. Asher stayed at home with Joseph who had no interest in going. There was no way I'd be able to handle all four kids there by myself, especially Asher.

Moses ended up not having any fun (he did not want to do anything at all), so when another one of my friends was leaving, she offered to drop him off at home. I was grateful for that. I didn't have to try to entertain him while trying to keep an eye on Akiko and dealing with a tiny baby.

So, Simon and I survived for three hours out of the house. We mostly hung out with my friends while we let Akiko and her friends do their thing. Thank goodness it was one of those perfect days where it was sunny, but not hot. But now, I'm utterly exhausted.

I just read everything I just typed and I'm not sure what the relevance of this post was supposed to be. I think that it has something to do with the fact that I'm finally venturing out into the world again.

Mentally, I'm totally ready for it. Physically, I'm not quite where I'd like to be. Every day I feel a little less sore than the day before, unless I overdo it on a  given day. Then I'm pretty sore the next day.

I'd really like to make it to church tomorrow. I'm kind of afraid I overdid it today. I guess we'll see how I'm feeling in the morning. I'm going to be pretty useless the rest of today now, though.

Since I don't have any new pictures to post for now, I'm just going to leave you all with an awesome one of Asher eating yogurt. Check out his Colonel Sanders 'stache!