The Key to a Successful Marriage

Ok, so, it was my major, and in my four years of college I learned this: "communication and listening to your spouse is one of the key to a successful marriage." If you who know us well, I think you'd agree that we've mastered this one already. Case in point:

This evening as I was reading this blog (ahhh, sweet goodness), and Greg was trying to talk to me about himself (ahh, more sweet goodness). I was listening with my ears, but my eyes were otherwise entertained by the computer screen and all its beauty, so he accused me of not paying attention. He said "Don't I listen to you when you're talking about yourself?".... "no", I said. "Yes I do," he argued, "today you called me at work and said................ something something, something something something...."

Then we laughed for a few minutes solid as though he had just told the most hillarious inside joke... which of course he had.

I love this man.

Sunday Morning Checkers Match

There is rarely anything in life sweeter than a father who loves his children.

Celebrating the year

I believe God gives us events and holidays so that we can celebrate together with the people we love. I haven't been very good and birthday parties so far (I'm improving, but it's been a while since I had a "kid" birthday party), Nevertheless I think it's a great excuse to have a party with all the people you love. So, Here's ours! Janae and Leah share a birthday (we told Janae that a niece was her birthday present last year when we called from the hospital). We had a joint birthday party for them and it was a BLAST. Of course, incorporating Janae's love of all things Disney, and our attempt at giving Leah a girly party (she gets enough cars, trains and transformers at home every day), we asked everyone to dress up as a character from a Disney Princess Movie. Leah was Cinderella (of course). Janae has a picture of Mulan around her neck, you can't see it very well, but it's there, and I thought that was cute.

Greg was Peter Pan (we decided Tiger Lily counted since she was a princess, and it was a Disney movie)

Angela was one of the fairies from Sleeping Beauty, Kristina.. well, she borrowed one of the pirate accessories that Jeremiah shared with Braden.

We could always count on Hannah and Julia to represent. Janette said they were obsessing all day about which princess they were going to go as. So Cute. There's a picture of Hannah a little further down, I think.

Oh right, like here. I'm pretty sure she was cinderella, but I can't be sure. Hailey was jasmin, although it's hard to see in this picture, and Allison was the witch, I think from Sleeping beauty (way to represent my favorite color, BLACK). And Jeremiah got his pirate hat out of our costume box.

Grandma was Rapunzel... not a disney princess yet, but you know it's going to happen. I'm not sure where the funky glasses come in, but it was funny. Dad Hirschi was the magic carpet, he wore his mexican pancho. (very creative, sorry, I don't think we got a picture of it), and Bryan was Gus Gus, the mouse, with a grey hoodie with cardboard mouse ears, and a shirt a few sizes too small on top. HILLARIOUS!

And Karen and Jeffrey... well, mostly Jeffrey. Can you believe what Karen created out of a set of church clothes, a red gift ribbon and a white pillow case??? She's genious.

You can't really tell, but I was the fairy godmother, I had a cape, but took it off. And yes, Leah and I match, but what are you gonna do? I had leftover fabric, and I was cheap!

And of course, the crash that followed the sugar rush. Conked out in Grandma's arms after the party.

It was all so much fun, thanks to everyone who participated, and especially those who dressed up. It made it so much fun! Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl(s). We love you.

The obligatory post

Of course, the first day of school post. You can skip this one, if you're sick of reading about weepy moms dropping their babies off at school for the first time. However, I was not, nor am I now weepy about it, though a little lost for two hours without him.

Jeremiah began preschool this year. He's so darn cute, I must say. ANYWAY. The night before school we followed suit with Nie and had a back to school celebration, with cake and everything! Homemade cheeseburgers, spinach salad, fruit smoothies and carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Jeremiah loved it. I made a crown for him with his initial on it, and he thought it was cool, although I'm not sure we'll continue the tradition of the crown. But he was the guest of honor, and it was a special day. And the first day of school picture.

I've become one of those bloggers

I don't know what happened. One day it was all I could do not to think about something new to blog about, uploading pictures to post, etc. And then, all of a sudden, with my new determination to get off the computer and start living my life, somehow blogging doesn't seem like much of a priority. I've become a blogger who has a blog, but doesn't post to it.

I wish I could have a personal assistant to blog about my life for me, or download my thoughts and pictures strait from my mind (particularly when I forget the camera and only have my memories of what i saw). So, I am hereby recommitting myself to journal about my life and the lives of my children and my husband as we explore this big big world together. More to follow.

Trip to Oregon

Last month I had the opportunity of throwing the kids in the car (not literally) and taking a short 22 hour car trip to central Oregon to visit a friend of mine who needed my help. Here is the drive, in pictures:If you can't tell, that is a shoe tree. Yes, in the middle of nowhere, around milepost 98 there lies a tree that has lost 1/2 of its leaves, but gained hundreds of pairs of shoes. It makes me wonder how that got started......A lot of signs like these (30 mph turns), even though the speed limit was 55.

I'm lame, and I didn't take any photos while we were there, but Jeremiah had fun playing outside every day with his little friend Hannah (we had to call her little Hannah, so as not to confuse her with big hannah who lives here in Utah). On the trip I learned a few things. #1. You do not need a portable DVD player to have a delightfully long car trip with your young children. #2. Although it would have been nice. :) #3. Driving on rural highways with potty trained children is much nicer that busy freeways. You can just pull the car over and pee on the side of the road. (ps, last night as we were driving home from Provo Jeremiah said he needed to go to the bathroom, and when he was told to hold it until we got home he said "it's ok, I can just pee on the rocks".... meaning the soft shoulder that often accompanies the rural highways of central OR). and #4 My lifesavers were and always will be Snacks, Toys and lots and lots of Books, (and a few dozen rounds of the Bob the Builder and Transformers theme songs, and Joy to the World, by Three Dog Night (otherwise known as Jeremiah was a bullfrog).

Here is to one great road trip with kids, and many more to come. :)

Prepping for school

Mom: Jeremiah, did you know that in a few weeks you get to go to school in Miss Margaret's class?

Jeremiah: Where is Miss Marget?

Mom: She's probably getting school ready.

Jeremiah: Marget's coming over to my house to play?

Mom: No, she's going to be your teacher, Miss Margaret is a grown up.

Jeremiah: I don't like grown-ups.

There you have it folks (a phrase which he also said this morning), Jeremiah doesn't like grown-ups. But he IS excited to begin preschool this year. We will begin a marvelous tradition that I learned from Stephanie, doing a back to school celebration each year before the first day of school. I think it will be FUN!

Vintage Patterns

My brilliant mother sent me this. you should TOTALLY check it out.

University of Rhode Island has granted free access to their vintage pattern library which has over 48,000 vintage patterns. These include illustrations of the finished item as well as a scan of the quarter scale pattern pieces. Styles depicted date from 1868-2006. Unlimited access starts 8/19 through 8/25. To access it, click on Login at the top of the page. The username is "guest" and the password is "pattern". Once you're logged in, select "search" at the top of the page to find something interesting. You can search by garment type, occasion, gender, pattern company, dates and keywords. The interface is kind of clunky and the display is inefficient so reading the instructions (pdf) first will be helpful. Be advised the site is optimized for the FireFox browser.

The Obligatory Zoo Post

I think every Mormon mom, or aunt, or grandma has at least one "Zoo Post" each summer. This is mine. We went to the zoo a few weeks ago with some good friends of ours, Karen and Jeffrey. We had a delightful time. Of course, I forgot my camera, but Karen took some photos of me and the kids. Enjoy!

Dissapointment

For the last 9 months we haven't seen much of Daddy. One morning Greg was still home and the kids woke up earlier than usual. Greg went in to get them and Jeremiah looks and exclaims "Daddy! It's Daddy! Daddy's in mine room!"..... Clearly we haven't seen him enough. And all this family sacrifice has been for one goal, well, up until June it was one goal: the CFA exam. (since June it's been the GMAT) And today, we found out the results of those six months of studying into the wee hours of the night- FAIL.

Nevertheless, I'm still darn proud of him for working as hard as he does, and we'll just take it again next year. Oh boy. We love him a lot and hope that after B-school applications are in, we'll get to enjoy him at least for a few months, before he has to begin studying again for CFA again. We love you Daddy.