invitation

randy's masters recital is two weeks from today:

friday, february 17th, 2012 at 5:30pm in the madsen recital hall, HFAC, byu campus.

we would love to see any family and friends there that can make it. please, no children under eight years old.

it is sure to be a good performance. randy has been preparing long and hard for this.

two

diane turned two on monday. i can't believe it.



we started the celebrations a little bit early on sunday. my mom and rachel share a birthday on the 25th and diane's is on the 30th, so we did cake for everyone sunday night and diane opened her present from my parents.

then, on monday, it was her actual birthday. she didn't get much fanfare. we blew up a bunch of balloons in the morning and put up a few other decorations and then after randy got home from school, we did presents again.

a new doll from grandma and grandpa peck. she quickly incorporated it into her baby entourage.

a dump truck from grammy and grandpa bob.

playing with some new puzzles from mom and dad.

diane is a delight and the past two years have flown by. i can't imagine our lives without her.

limber

fact: i can touch my toes when i'm pregnant. a feat that is only possible during non-pregnancy after a very long run in hot weather. but right now, i can touch my toes at any time, even with a large belly in the way.

the strange things pregnancy does to my body.

and ligaments.

obligatory baby bump photo

pregnant with jonathan, 30 weeks along

every pregnancy, i tell myself that i am going to take a picture each week of my pregnancy so that i can look back and see how my belly grew over the months. and every pregnancy, i get one or two photos of myself showcasing my stomach.

because, when it comes down to it, i don't want to be in front of the camera when i am pregnant. or really, in general. but certainly not right now.

but for posterity's sake, and for my mother-in-law, who hasn't seen me since thanksgiving, when i was much smaller, here is one of the two pictures i will take this pregnancy. 

snow day

we got a flurry of snow the other night and the girls woke up in the morning, ready to go out in it. by the time we got out there, it was pretty crunchy and not much fun to play in, but they still had fun.

i taught madeleine how to make snow angels, but it didn't make much of a dent in the hard snow.

diane making her own snow angels.

randy even joined us outside for a while. diane kept trying to get him to eat the snow off of her gloves.

madeleine started hopping around in the snow to make deep footprints and diane wanted to hop around too, but couldn't do it on her own. randy helped her and then started chasing madeleine with a hopping diane. both kids thought it was pretty much the best thing in the world.

crying

fact one: madeleine was overtired yesterday and consequently, cried a lot throughout the day.
fact two: madeleine loves to give us a constant and very detailed commentary on her life. she is very honest in her depictions. for instance, i will pick her up from my sister's house and ask her what she did. she will say something like this: "we played with toys and i had three time outs because i was being mean to rachel." it's actually kind of nice and i hope that her honesty will continue through her teenage years.

yesterday, we had the following conversations with madeleine:

over dinner, while madeleine was giving randy the rundown on her day
madeleine: and then, bruce came and picked rachel up and i was crying a lot.
me: why were you crying?
madeleine: because i have lots of problems.

while madeleine and i were reading the scriptures, we came across a part where jesus was weeping out of joy.
madeleine: why is jesus crying?
me: because he was so happy. sometimes, when we are really happy, it makes us cry.
madeleine: yeah, but i wasn't happy today, i was MAD.

losing my mind

i always complain that i can't remember a thing while i am pregnant and that i become a complete airhead. i hate being an airhead. randy openly acknowledges that my IQ probably dips a few points when i am pregnant. sadly, i am pretty sure that i never fully recover from this decline.

concrete example:

we arrived at church yesterday and we were actually ten minutes early, but randy was playing the organ, so we were kind of running late. randy ran inside and i started to unload the girls when i looked down and realized that i had never changed out of my slippers and into my sunday shoes. in my defense, my slippers look like (really beat up) leather moccassins and have a full sole, so it's not like i walked out of the house with fuzzy bunnies on my feet.

i debated whether or not to go home and get my shoes, but i had already unloaded the girls and i hate getting them in and out of their car seats, especially when i am pregnant. plus, i probably would have been late by the time i went and changed them and came back. and, i spend half of church with a bunch of non-judgmental one and two year olds, so i decided to just go inside with my slippers on.

when i decided this, i didn't calculate in that we sit on the second row and i have a child that just learned to go to the bathroom. i had to dash in and out of the chapel several times and for some reason (once again, i blame it on pregnancy) decided that it would be better to kick off my slippers and run out barefoot each time rather than leave my slippers on.

such is the irrationality of my pregnant mind.