August

Soccer girl

I have now joined the ranks of the soccer mom. Millie just started soccer and is loving it. At first, she was resistant -- she didn't want to play in front of other people, she didn't know how to play, she thought the pink and black cleats I got her (too cute) were ugly -- yada yada yada. However, after the first practice she was hooked! It doesn't matter that half the time she spends on the field she is in imagination land, or that during her second practice she took a break to come and tell Daddy that they needed to find a shovel because the X painted on the field meant that there was buried treasure (to be fair, she did ask her coach if she could leave to go tell Dad the big news), or that half the time she skips towards the ball rather than running at it agressively, or that she scored the first goal of her first game for the opposing team. She loves it and even blocked three goals playing goalie late in the game.

Madeline the Frog

Millie, ever the creature-lover, captured a frog (toad? I don't know the difference) in our backyard this week and treasured it until it disappeared. How she loved her Madeline (she names her creatures after friends)! We are still unsure and at odds about how Madeline disappeared. Mommy thinks that she somehow escaped from her none-too-secure container on her own. Millie alledges that she was eaten by a vicious snake in the backyard. For Mommy's peace of mind, she is hoping that Millie's hypothesis is not the correct one.

Labor Day at the Children's Museum Jester Jane. The kids got to do their own face-painting while looking in the mirror. Jane couldn't seem to get past one spot on her cheek which she kept painting over and over again.
Abby doing some fishing

Senorita Abby serving up some tacos.
Millie and her friends.
Jumping Jane -- very happy to be there and very happy not to be confined to her stroller.
Pulling Abby up on the pulley -- perhaps this is how I threw out my back?
Painted princesses

The girls had a wonderful time at the Houston Children's Museum on Labor Day with our good friends the Craners. It was so great to get out of the house and have some fun in a nice, cool place with lots of engaging activities. It really is a great museum.

Daddy-Daughter Date

Mark has now left for his 10 weeks of training in NYC and we miss him terribly! I have been preparing mentally for this for 5 months, but it still didn't make it any easier to have him go. I was all geared up, though, to put on my sturdy, Mormon woman face and weather through. I was actually doing very well the first few days, and then I threw my back out (herniated disc) and spent the week in agonized empathy for all of those who suffer from chronic back pain! The timing couldn't have been worse, but our ward has been amazing! The young men showed up Saturday morning to do the lawn, my visiting teachers came and cleaned my house (Mark says that I've just got to learn to grit my teeth and let people serve me, but it's very hard to do), other people have brought dinner or invited us over, several women have watched my kids at different times. It's been incredible and I am so touched by the service of so many -- especially when they hardly know me! I feel very well taken care of, even though Mark is so far away. We have also loved talking to Daddy via our web cam.

Before he left, Mark took the older two girls to a high school football game (high school football is huge in TX) for a Daddy-Daughter Date. They had so much fun! They called me from the car on the way home and Millie was thrilled to have gotten one of the small, plastic footballs that the cheerleaders threw into the crowd. Abby just said, "I have a stomache ache, Mommy, because I ate too many sweet tweats (treats)." We all really miss Daddy!

First Grade Here We Come!

Millie is now a full-fledged first-grader and is loving her new school (and bus, of course). Sending her off this year was a little easier than last, but my heart still ached as I thought about how big she is getting! She is such a bright light in our home with her endless creativity and her sunny smile. She is so capable and helpful and has such sweet and tender heart. I think she could pretty much run the house if I needed her to. She loves making the girls lunch or getting them snacks, or taking care of Jane's needs (far be it for me to get in the way). Apparently, she also sometimes likes to give her opinion when it's not solicited. The other day, she told me that she had told her new friend at lunch at school that she should eat her other food before eating her Oreos.

She is loving her class and is very motivated by the different behavioral incentive programs they have at school. She comes home from school everyday chattering like a magpie about all that happened that day (I love that she loves to share her day with me!). She is currently all wrapped up in the idea that she wants to be an animal scientist and loves to study about various animals and write about them in her "animal scientist notebook".

Happy Birthday, Mark!

We love you!!

A visit to Austin Millie catching up with her cousin David.
Jane and Emma trying to fight the heat under the tent during the game.

Early in August, we visited Austin to connect with my sister and her family. They live in Dallas, but were going to be in Austin for my nephew's soccer tournament (go Jake!) and so we decided to drive the 2 1/2 hours to meet up with them. Jennifer and her son, David, met up with us at the outlets in San Marcos (the most amazing outlets I've ever seen -- every store was there.) where we shopped for a few hours before heading off to see Jake's afternoon game. The heat was intense, but it was worth it to see Jake in action! We had so much fun being together and eating at a fun Italian restaurant that night for Mark's birthday. The drive? Flat, barren, waste-land, not quite like the green, tree-filled drives we've been used to back east. Austin? Seems like a really nice city, although I did expect the hills of the "hill country" to be a little bigger.

9 Years
Mark and I celebrated our 9th anniversary at the beginning of August and it's hard to believe that it has already been 9 years -- 9 busy, eventful, full-of-fun-times, full-of-surprises, growing-together years! I remember our first meeting clearly.

It was a Sunday evening in the Fall and I was making some visits to some of the girls in our BYU ward. I had recently returned from my mission and had spoken in church that day. When I came to one apartment, I saw Mark, sleeves rolled up, washing the dishes after having been invited there for dinner. He began a conversation with me about my talk and that was our first contact. The next week he walked me home from a ward fireside. After that he arranged group activities for our respective apartments. Finally, we went out that December to an all-Gershwin concert at Abravenel Hall in Salt Lake. From the first, I felt comfortable and had fun with him. As I got to know him better, I appreciated his eternal optimism (even after I told him that there was "no chance of anything ever happening romantically between us" :)), his consideration for other people, his spiritual grounding, his sense of fun, his love for me. I still love all of those things and all of the other amazing things I've learned about him since then! What a blessed girl I am to have such a husband, laird :), friend, and companion!

Exploring . . .

The girls love their new friends (here at the Miller Outdoor Theater). So many little girls and somehow they all love princesses, swimming, and crafty things.
I love my new friends Heidi and Catherine. It's been so wonderful to get to know them!
Abby comparing her "wing span" to that of an eagle at the Houston Zoo.

Millie-bird

A cute little prairie dog.
Melba and Sammie -- two very fun prairie dogs

Millie and the goat she wouldn't have minded taking home with her.

Sno cone face

Jane running through the sprinklers at the water park.
Jane has just started making this face whenever she fancies that her feelings are hurt (for example, when we take something away from her that is not good for her to have, but which she thinks is fine for her to have). It's hilarious (especially considering the occasions when she pulls it out), but when we laugh (which we frankly cannot help doing) she takes it seriously and starts to cry so we've had to restrain ourselves.

Millie showing off some of her faux play dough food (probably inspired by Jenni B, her primary teacher in C-ville)

Dripping-wet girls after making a break for the sprinklers right at bedtime -- they seem to be full of ways to evade getting to bed.


So far we've been doing a very little exploring of what this area has to offer, but what we've experienced so far, we've really enjoyed. We are enjoying our neighborhood pool on especially hot afternoons. A few weeks ago, we went with a group from our church to see a production of Disney songs at the Miller Outdoor Theater downtown where we sat on blankets on the grass to enjoy the show. We have also had our first visitors -- Hurray! We were honored to have my life-long friend, Melba, and her husband Sammie (who has been interning in Austin this summer), come for a weekend. It was so wonderful to catch up and to experience the Houston Zoo with them. It really was an incredible zoo and fortunately had a lot of tree cover on the walkways so that the heat was only mostly insufferable rather than completely so :). Regardless, we had a wonderful time and a wonderful weekend with the Markhams!

Home Sweet Home

Ready to walk into the house after signing the paperwork. Millie was already inside exploring.
It was almost a shame that we had to move the furniture in -- the girls loved running around the wide open spaces.
Happy to be home.
The breakfast nook. The wallpaper was one of the first things to go.
The backyard. We love how shaded it is!
Abby and Jane having fun sliding down a mattress.

We are so excited to finally have a house of our own and we have been loving our house! The girls have been so cute and excited about it too, so many of my apprehensions about it being a difficult transition for them have pretty much receded. Millie has been very eager to help around the house and to keep things neat (even though our house projects haven't allowed us to get everything settled yet). She's taken a lot of pride in picking up the toy room before bed (most nights) and keeping her room straight (most of the time). Abby calls our house "Houston, Texas" and doesn't quite get that the name applies to all of the surrounding area as well. She loves running through the sprinklers. Jane has had the rockiest transition (she's been a little more clingy), but is coming around and she loves the new space. We have been busy moving in and trying to work on a few surface, aesthetic changes (mostly stripping layers of wallpaper and painting), but it has been fun (sometimes :)) to learn how to do home improvement projects and to have a house of our own to work on (I'll start posting some before and after pictures once we get things more settled). Mark has really enjoyed the yard and scored a whole slew of yard tools at a garage sale last Saturday.

The weather has been beastly, but we have been enjoying swimming at our neighbor's pool and the community pool nearby. Otherwise, I try to go outside as little as possible. I think, however, that it was a good idea to move in during the hottest part of the year so that I know that this is as bad as it gets and can only get better (I hope!).

It has been so great to have Mark home the past few weeks and miss him now that he has started a free-lance consulting project in the area. We're grateful for his hard work, though!
He'll start his real job in September.

One of the greatest blessings since arriving are the new friends we've made. We actually have another family from our church on our same street with two girls and a boy right around the same ages as our girls and they have been so welcoming and the girls get along so well with them. We love having them as neighbors. We've also so enjoyed getting to know other families. As an uncanny coincidence, Mark's sister's husband's brother (if that makes any sense) moved into our ward the week before we did. They also have kids right around our kids' ages which makes it so fun!

Funny Millie-isms, Abby-isms, and Jane-isms from the past few weeks:

Millie: "Does the Devil have a wife and children?"

Abby: "I need a drink and I can't hold it!"

Abby: "Sleeping Beauty wants to say prayers. She says lovely prayers!"

Jane (in answer to any questions posed to her): "Nope!"

Millie (about her toy puppy): "I love it so much! I just can't take my eyes off it!"

Abby: "Why did Jesus make the snow not talk?"

I Knew I was in Texas When . . .

I knew I was in Texas when, our second day here, I went to Sam's Club and while looking around while I was stuck in traffic, realized that I was hemmed in on all sides by pick-up trucks -- GMC, Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford. Especially telling was the truck in front of me that had a hot pink decal on its back, tinted window that said, in fancy script writing, "Hick Chick", and the truck to the right of it that had a similar cursive, hot pink decal that said "Princess" with a hot pink kiss underneath. I wish I had had my camera. Does anyone have any suggestions for a hot pink decal I could get for my mini-van (groan)?

The Trip

On June 27th, we packed our two cars to the hilt and took off for Texas (where the rest of our belongings had been for a month). We were a little nervous about how the girls would do during our three day drive, but they handled it remarkably well. For the older girls, this was due mostly to fact that we finally broke down and invested in a portable DVD player and some new movies that kept them riveted. My favorite moment was when we stopped to get gas late one night and I looked back at Millie who was watching the end of "The Little Princess" when Sarah is reunited with her father and there were tears streaming down Millie's face. It was so tender!

We stayed the first night in Knoxville, TN after traveling through all of Virginia (southern VA has some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen), forged through Alabama and onto Hattiesville, Mississippi the next night, and after attending church in Baton Rouge, LA, we rolled into Houston along with the most terrific rain storm I've ever encountered. We had to pull over to wait it out and when I got out of the car to check something I was soaked to the bone instantly. It was quite something.

Mark and I enjoyed seeing some of the south, since it was unchartered territory for both of us. Most fascinating to me was driving through stretches of swamp/bayou in Louisiana. Virginia and Tennessee struck us as the most beautiful. Since I had left my phone charger in VA and Mark's had gotten misplaced in our luggage, we had fun communicating via walkie-talkie. And we were especially happy when the whole trek was over!

It's About Time!

Father's Day Dinner with the two best fathers I know!
Friends at the Zoo
A quaint street in Anapolis, MD


We tried a Battle of the BBQ event down in D.C. one day, but the only redeeming thing about it was the face painting that the girls loved!

Millie, the animal lover.
Jane warmed up to them a bit, but Abby was a little skittish the whole time.



Well, we've been in Texas for over three weeks now and I figured it was time to attempt to catch up on my blogging! So much has been going on! I'll talk about Texas and our move shortly, but I first wanted to post some pictures from our time in the D.C. area. It was too bad that we couldn't spend more time with my mom and dad while we were there (what with Emily's baby, David Oldroyd's baptism, and business travel), but we loved the time we had together. And we're sorry we didn't connect more with friends. It was a pretty hectic time because my ever resourceful husband, who doesn't officially start work until September, decided to see how many "gigs" he could find on Craigslist to earn a little extra money during the almost three weeks we were there. His/our various jobs included:

1) Making 50 brownies and 50 lemon bars for a caterer who needed some homemade baked goods for an event she was catering (Amy)
2) Passing out flyers for a tutoring service for several days (Mark)
3) Trying to place candy machines in offices (Mark)
4) Helping with an office move (Mark)
5) Acting as a production assistant for the filming of a public service announcement for several days (Mark)
6) Helping with some graduate school application essays (Amy)

While it was all pretty chaotic (especially since the girls were trying to decompress after such a busy month), we were able to gather our forces to do a few things. We spent an afternoon in beautiful Anapolis, Maryland touring the US Naval Academy, spent an afternoon at the National Zoo with our friends the Evans who came up from C-ville, and visited a lady in my mom's ward who had newborn puppies. The rest of the time we spent trying to get ready for our move and swimming in Grammie and Grandpa's community pool.