Feisty

I've already mentioned that I'm impressed with Lucky's blossoming personality. I got another taste of it the other night in the form of an all-out tantrum at three in the morning. I didn't bother turning on the light to see what it looked like on the outside of my stomach, but it felt like lava bubbling up under my skin. You've seen a newborn who's completely upset and hysterical, but lacking any sort of coordination? I'm pretty sure that's exactly what was going on. It made it really hard to sleep. This is the sort of thing that would normally worry me, except this happened right after Craig rolled over and kneed me in the stomach. Between a kick to the head and mommy's adrenaline rush as I shoved Craig's leg away before I'd even completely woken up, I suspect Lucky had every reason to be a bit upset.

Keep sticking up for yourself, Lucky.

I told Craig that if this happens again, we're getting a king-sized bed.

He said last night he kept waking up every time he moved his legs in order to make sure I wasn't near him before he moved. Good husband.

Sequim

We were in Seattle during Sequim's Lavender Festival. (Did you know there were so many awesome festivals in the Great Northwest?) Apparently Sequim (which is pronounced like "Squim") has perfect conditions for growing the best lavender outside of France. It's an odd patch of land near the mountains that manages to avoid most of the normal Seattle rainfall, so it's pretty sunny and really close to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. (And for all you Twilight fans out there, it's really close to Port Angeles.)

I don't love big crowds and I figured it would just be rough on the kids, so we opted to go see the lavender a couple days after the actual festival. We had lunch at the Chimacum Cafe on the way, and then enjoyed walking around the fields of lavender and breathing in the fragrant air! It was lovely!

At the Purple Haze Farm. (Is that a drug reference?)
Look at all that purple! So pretty!!!

It looks like Bentley is smelling the lavender, but I think he's actually looking at a bumble bee...

Artsy shots, courtesy of Craig. I really like these.

I want a hammock swing just like this some day.

We're eating lavender ice cream, which is actually really good!
Think vanilla with bits of white chocolate and lavender.
Yum.

They also kept a few chickens and peacocks at this farm.
Kendra was thrilled.

Overlooking the sandspit. I love water.

Looking straight across, you can just barely see Canada. My mom wanted to sing "Oh, Canada!" but I made her stop. I like my own country too much to bother singing about Canada.

Is there anything prettier? The sun was sparkling off the water just perfectly.

There you have it! Next time you buy anything lavender-scented, see if it came from Sequim!

Poulsbo

Poulsbo is a quirky little town just across the water from my island. It's where we had church all growing up (until a building was finally built on Bainbridge). You just drive across the bridge over the Agate Pass, through a short stretch of the Suquamish, the Indian Reservation (made clear by the huge Casino with flashing lights and the illegal fireworks stands) and then you're in Poulsbo, which was settled mostly by Norwegians. It's a cute little place right on the waterfront, with lots of docks filled with boats and weird holidays like Viking Fest (held in the middle of May to celebrate the signing of Norway's constitution). You can buy bumper stickers that say, "Honk if you like lutefisk!" and there's an office building for the Sons of Norway.

We headed over there on a grey Monday morning in order to get breakfast from the Sluys' Poulsbo Bakery. Craig and I got breakfast there the day after we got married, so it seemed like something we just had to do. First we grabbed some hot chocolate at Starbucks (what's Seattle without a trip to Starbucks?) and then stood around inside the bakery enjoying the smells and trying to make up our minds what to buy. We should have come back again for a post-dinner dessert-- their brownies and cookies were awfully tempting, even first thing in the morning! The kids wanted to try the maple bar man (think gingerbread man, but maple bar), so I told them they had to split it. Even then they couldn't finish it, although Kendra did a great job of smearing it all over her mouth. Craig got a maple bar and a cinnamon roll, and I settled on a scone (even though it had raspberry filling) and a doughnut. My mom was nice and got the sour cream doughnut I'd been eyeing and offered to share a bite with me.

We found a bench and sat staring at the boats bobbing on the water and enjoying our food.

(Notice the wooden cutout of a viking boat in the background? I'm not making up the stuff about Viking Fest!)

Typical Kendra after any meal, really, but this maple bar man was particularly messy.

When we finished, we figured we had better do at least a little walking so we wouldn't feel like complete gluttons. We walked along the waterfront until we came to a small park and let the kids run around for a bit. In addition to the regular park equipment, Bentley found a driftwood log that he loved climbing, and eventually Kendra had to join him.

Climbing with Teddy in one hand, a car in the other, and a look of sheer delight on his face. That's my boy!

Here you can get a better idea of how high up he was.

Kendra on the teeter-totter. I'm assuming Craig is holding down the other end, but I'm not really sure...

My Mom and I quickly find ourselves sitting again. So much for our healthy "walk!"
And no, I don't know why I can never sit like a normal person...

Kendra tries climbing, too.

Next time you need an excuse to visit the great Northwest, I think Sluys' Bakery and Viking Fest should be all the reason you need!

Houston

We flew to Houston on July 7th and stayed with Craig's brother and his family for a little over a week. Considering that Jeni (our sister-in-law) is in the throes of morning sickness (which, in her case, should really be called all-day sickness), I thought it was awfully nice of them to welcome us into their home! I won't go into all the details of the stuff we did because that would take too long, but I will show you lots of pictures!

The kids were really excited to ride a plane. They did this last December, too, but I don't think it made as much of an impression at the time...

One of the places we went was the Houston Children's Museum. It's a lot of fun, but if I had more money than I knew what to do with, I would rent the place out so we weren't trying to elbow other people's kids out of the way the entire time! As it was, everyone had a great time and Donna and I managed to keep our growling-at-other-kids to a minimum. Remarkable self-restraint for a Mama and Grandma Bear!

Bentley was really excited to wear the hard hat provided in a construction zone.
I think it's a good look for him.


Kendra wanted to wear a hard hat, too, but her head was a little too small for it.

Kamryn demonstrates the awesome gloves the construction workers could wear.

Kendra (after giving up on the hat) is anxious to at least help out with the building.

The kids enjoyed playing with the puppet theater, also.

I painted a sunshine on Kendra's face.

Here Grandpa is helping everyone make Chinese yo-yos. (That's Maya, looking up at the camera)

Kamryn models clothing from Singapore (or was it somewhere else? Now I can't remember...).

Maya takes a motorcycle ride with Grandpa while Lindsy waits patiently.
(She could have taught some lessons on manners to the other kids there!)

We took a lunch break at Chuy's (YUM YUM YUM) and most of us ate so much we were ready to go home and nap it off. Except Bentley. He, Daddy, and Grandma and Grandpa headed back to the museum where they could play with the water toys outside and get really wet.

I love this picture of Maya. She's just a couple months older than Bentley and she is just like a little nymph. She cracked me up the entire time we were there!

All the cousins together!

It's really hard to get everyone to hold still long enough for a picture...

Those are the best of the pictures I have. We also went to the beach, which I loved. A water park (Schlitterbahn, for those of you familiar with the Houston/Galveston area), which I also loved, but it wore me out trying to keep track of my kids the entire time. It was interesting to learn which slides scared which kid, though! And, perhaps best of all, we played a lot of Beatles Rock Band. I loved every minute of it.

We also ate a lot. Between restaurant stops (fabulous BBQ in addition to Chuy's), and a day-o-grilling, Jason also managed to make crepes and chocolate-peanut-butter cake for my birthday (normally this would have been more in Jeni's domain, but Jason very kindly filled in for her while she was sick). It was all Fabulous. I may never have a figure again. But I sure enjoyed myself!

Thanks, Jason and Jeni!!

This Time I Mean It!

(Anybody want a peanut?)

I know I've talked about my intentions of potty-training Bentley before. But this time we're really doing it. Really. We were going to start this morning, but then he got so excited hearing about it after church that we actually began yesterday afternoon. So far, today, no accidents and my fingers are still crossed. (And the accident yesterday was at least on the linoleum, so it wasn't exactly tragic.)

I'll pick up some more stickers for his sticker chart later today, but we have plenty for now. Bentley has been promised a Buzz Lightyear toy once the chart is filled up, so he's very excited for this.

Wish us luck!

Taking Chances

I'm going to be completely obnoxious and brag about myself. And the worst part is that most of you probably won't be impressed by this at all. But for me, this is kind of a big deal. Do you mind humoring me by pretending to be impressed?

I made spaghetti sauce. From scratch. Without a recipe. And it actually turned out pretty good.

Now if you know me at all, you know that I am NOT a chef. And I never do anything without a recipe. If I don't have a decent (and easy to follow) recipe, then the food may as well not exist for all I can tell. So this was stepping outside my comfort zone on all kinds of levels. And to be perfectly honest, for all the people out there who have told me that home-made spaghetti sauce is so easy to make, I've always been pretty happy with the store bought kind. (Not only am I not a chef, I am also not much of a gourmet consumer, either. It turns out.) It would never have occurred to me to make spaghetti sauce from scratch.

It all started when I stepped outside to talk to my neighbor. She was gardening, and I wanted to thank her for watering my own garden while we were away. My neighbor, Margie, is a great talker. I'm a pretty good talker, but this woman puts me to shame. In the course of our conversation, she mentioned that I'd had one really big zucchini growing in my garden, so she'd gone ahead and made it into spaghetti sauce and even her grandkids liked it. Well, another monster zucchini had grown up since then, so I asked her to repeat what she'd done so I could try it, too. That was the closest thing to a recipe that I got.

So here's how it worked. I peeled and seeded the zucchini (did you know that when you let them get too big, their seeds get too big, too? I thought they just stopped growing at the size you find them at the grocery store! But this thing was a foot long and some of the seeds were the same size as watermelon seeds-- icky!). I sliced it up, and threw it in the crock pot with a can of diced tomatoes, a diced onion, and some Italian seasonings. I had no idea how much to put in, so I went with a teaspoon. It felt like a good safe amount. Then I added some salt and garlic powder, and then on a whim (remembering how my mother-in-law doctors up store-bought spaghetti sauce), I added some sugar, too.

After letting it sit cooking all day, it occurred to me that I had sliced the zucchini, but I probably wanted it diced or even minced. So I scooped it all out of the crock pot and mashed it up with a potato masher and then put it back in. Nice. I told you I wasn't much of a cook! After letting it cook for a few more hours, Craig and I both sampled a bite and were pleasantly surprised that it tasted all right.

With that approval, I decided it was worth adding meat to the mix, so after church today I browned hamburger and added that to the mix. But then it looked too much like a load of meat with some stuff added in and not enough like sauce, so I added a can of tomato sauce and a little more Italian seasonings and let it all heat up again. And voila! Put it on top of noodles with a little Parmesan cheese and it was pretty dang good!

I liked Craig's reaction best: "I'm not sure if this sauce is really this good or if it's just because I've been fasting all day, but this is tasting really good to me." The lesson here is obvious: always try new recipes on Fast Sundays. They'll be a hit no matter what!

Anyway, for those of you out there who actually know something about cooking, feel free to add your suggestions for making it even better. I'm pretty sure my garden will be producing plenty more zucchini before the summer is over so I'll have plenty to experiment on. And if you're here in Manassas and want a zucchini to try it out yourself, just let me know!

Introducing Eliot

I feel like I've had so much to blog about that I've been quite remiss in not introducing you to this little guy sooner!

Nearly a week ago, on Monday, July 26th, my oldest sister Leah gave birth to her first baby, Eliot Paul Bentley Madden!!! Leah managed to have one of the smoothest first deliveries I've ever heard of, producing a perfect little baby boy in just six hours and without any medications! Wow. I am so jealous. Eliot was born with a great set of hair (he must have gotten this from Brian, since Leah didn't have any hair until she was about three!) and weighed in at 6 lbs 11 oz (both my babies were 8 1/2 lbs, so apparently I need to learn what Leah was eating her entire pregnancy and copy her...).

Pictures say a lot more than words here, so I'll let them do most of the talking:

My sister Tracy sent out this picture. So perfect!

Mother and son contemplate each other.
I don't think there's any moment quite like meeting your baby for the first time...

Love the fact that even though he's so tiny, he still had plenty of chub on his arms and legs.
So cute!!!

Very proud Papa. Brian is going to be such a great Daddy!!!

Chubby legs!!! I love them!!!

So this is my newest nephew! I can't even say how excited I am that Leah and Brian finally took the plunge into parenting! Congratulations, you guys! We're so happy for you!!!

Ultrasound

I'm not really sure that there's a lot of news to share about my ultrasound. It was fun to see my baby, although it took so long that my neck got tired from being cranked around to see the screen! Craig and I had agreed to not find out what we were having this time around. This had actually been my idea from years ago-- if I already had a boy and a girl, I thought it would be fun to find out the old fashioned way, when the baby is actually born. Doesn't that sound exciting? One last push and then the doctor gets to say, "Congratulations, it's a _____!" I love the idea of it.

And since I now have a boy and girl, this was the pregnancy to do it! It also helps that, after Kendra's crazy delivery, I sort of felt like I needed something that would make this delivery exciting, without Craig wanting to kill me afterwards. So I think this is a healthy way to go about accomplishing that. (The only contingency that Craig demanded before he would agree to having a third kid was that I do everything in my power to go to the hospital this time. I've already been scheming and planning to make it happen. As I was discussing these plans with Craig, he quoted Yoda at me: "Do or do not, there is no try!" He's quite serious about this, so I am, too!)

So the real question going into this ultrasound was whether or not we'd be able to NOT find out. And we didn't!

We told the technician before she could even sit down that we were hoping to be surprised, and she was great about turning the screen away from us any time she thought there was a chance we might see something revealing. And when she typed up her prediction, she even asked (somewhat accusingly) if Craig was reading over her should and told him not to! At one point Craig thought he might have seen boy parts, but the more he watched, the more he decided that he really had no clue what he was looking at. The appointment was peppered with us asking questions like, "Is that the baby's arm?" only to be answered with, "No, that's the placenta," and stuff like that. So we're just as unsure as ever. (And any use of gender-specific words from here on out are to be taken as 50/50 chance guesses. I hate saying "his/her" all the time, so don't read into it now when I stop bothering!)

The funny thing was at the end, when the technician wanted to get a profile shot of the baby. And Lucky protectively hid her face behind her arms the entire time! She was very shy. So it took a long time of trying (and some painful poking at my stomach) before another technician was finally called in to get the shot. By then, I was getting sore from laying on my back and was just as glad to be done. The new technician did get a couple-- I guess Lucky just liked her better. Or maybe it was because she wasn't poking at me so hard that Lucky didn't feel the need to protect his face! Anyway, here are the best pictures (at least, the ones where the baby doesn't look like an alien or Skelator).

Ack. For some reason, the computer wants to make them huge, so they aren't fitting into the frame at all. Grr. If you want to be able to actually see them, you'll have to click on each one individually. Sorry.

Notice the arm hovering above the face.
I think Lucky's mouth is slightly open here, too-- maybe some imminent thumb sucking?

Another profile shot.

This one's my favorite. Little tiny feet! Who doesn't love such tiny feet?

So there we have it! Picture of Lucky, gender still unknown!

It also took the technician forever to find a picture of the 4th chamber of the heart. It finally got to the point where Craig was getting nervous and asked if there was a problem. She quickly said, "Oh, no, everything's fine! I just want a better picture." Then she paused and added, "But I'm not supposed to give a diagnosis." So of course now I'm slightly nervous that perhaps something ELSE was wrong and she just wasn't telling us. But my next doctor's appointment is for the 11th, and I'll be glad to hear a doctor actually pronounce everything to be fine!

You never get to stop worrying, do you?

Interpretation

In my family, we have a long history of getting the lyrics wrong. For years, Rachael thought the song "Rhythm of the Night" was "River of My Life" and Natalie used to sing the lyrics to "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" with some random line she made up about "Why can't you scuba dive down?"

Recently, my kids have fallen in love with the primary song "Follow the Prophet." They mostly sing it in public places, and I have to wonder what other (non-Mormon) people think of this. Especially since Bentley likes to mispronounce half the words, so it comes out sounding more like, "Follow the Plah-set" (at the top of his lungs, of course). Do they understand what he's saying at all? Do they think he's saying "profit"? Do they think we're completely crazy? Or are they just wondering why no one tells that poor, off-key kid to stop singing? Who knows.

This song has approximately 9 billion verses to it, too, which mention some of the major prophets from the Bible. The final verse goes, "Now we have a world where people are confused./ If you don't believe it, go and watch the news./ We can get direction all along the way,/ If we heed the prophets-- follow what they say."

The other day, Craig overheard Kendra singing her own version of it: "We can get directions, go follow the news!"

Ouch.

I guess we need to work harder on teaching our children what we believe...

Rachael's Wedding

I already mentioned that this was coming up, but as planned, my youngest sister Rachael got married last Saturday. I'm afraid I do not have NEARLY as many pictures as I ought to have of the event. Craig was busy filming it, so he didn't take as many still shots as he normally would have, and I was running around trying to keep the kids happy and trying to figure out how to walk in heels (something I've never been very good at, and which was made much worse by the soft grass outside the temple. Thanks to me, that grass is now well aerated. During all this was also when Bentley decided it was fun to head-butt me repeatedly. I think I'm lucky I never actually fell over, although it was close a few times...) So, yes, there should be oodles more pictures than what I have here. If by the end of this post, you're still thirsting for more, say so in your comment and I'll send you the links to the picassa web albums that other members of the wedding party have set up.

So, without further ado:

Samuel, Bentley and Kendra play with cars outside the temple while we wait for the newlyweds to come out.
I am hovering overhead, taking pictures and ready to protect the flowers at any given time.

And here they are! I recommend zooming on this one so you can see the happy couple better!
And on the right, you can see Ian's dad, my mom, and most of Tracy (holding baby Caleb).

Here's a good shot of Rachael. She looked stunning, but I expected no less.
(Kudos to my friend Laresa's sister for making such a perfect veil. Thanks, Heidi!)

My family with Rachael and Ian. L-R: Mom, Dad, Rachael, Ian, me (trying to cover the baby bump with my flowers), Natalie, and Tracy. My oldest sister, Leah, is very much missed in this photo, but since she gave birth approximately 41 hours after the ceremony, I guess she made the right choice staying home!

Bentley found a pair of (ahem, women's) sunglasses and thought they were great fun.
He was trying to be as cool as his cousin Samuel:

See? Isn't he cool? A nice James Bond look, I think.

Craig thought to take this adorable cousin shot.

My Dad takes advantage of the few minutes before the reception starts to make good use of the nearby putting green. Gotta love playing golf in a tux!

After the reception, we put all the flowers in the kitchen. It made it hard to cook anything, but it sure was lovely!

I know, I know-- you're thinking, "Where are the pictures of the actual reception???" I don't know. Not on Craig's iPhone, apparently. But at least you get the idea, right?

For information's sake, the entire day was lovely. The sealing was beautiful, and I managed to keep my usual wedding day sobbing to a fairly low decibel at least. Afterwards we spent way too long taking pictures, which is exactly how a good wedding should be. The weather was perfect Seattle summer: sunny, cloudless, high 70s. Eat your heart out, Virginians! And then while the bride and groom wandered the temple grounds for more couples shots, the rest of us headed over to the restaurant for lunch. Lunch was my favorite Mexican restaurant, Azteca. It was a bit difficult for Craig and I because Bentley had fallen asleep on the way there, and spent the entire meal sitting on our laps and feeling tired and grumpy. Right before we left, he finally ate a tortilla slathered in sour cream and then turned into the happy kid I'm used to.

Next was the ferry ride back to Bainbridge Island. Unfortunately the line was long (Saturday tourist traffic), so we had to wait for the second boat. But this gave us time to hang out with Ian's family in the parking lot and get to know them better, which was great fun. I also enjoyed explaining to them how the ferry worked-- it's nice to be the one who knows what's going on! The wait also gave me time to finish Ian and Rachael's wedding gift, which was an idea I TOTALLY stole from my very-good-at-crafts sister-in-law, Jeni. She did this for our wedding, too, and I loved it so much I copied it: basically I folded up paper to look like fortune cookies and then either placed money or very happy fortunes inside. My favorite fortune was Craig's idea (keep in mind that Ian plans to become a podiatrist): "Many years of foot problems will bring you wealth and happiness." Classic.

Jeni's version was cuter, but I did the best I could.

Rachael and Ian didn't want to be stuck waiting, so they walked on (rather than driving) to the first boat, along with my sister Tracy and the photographer. This gave Rachael the perfect opportunity to get a picture of herself on the ferry in her wedding dress. I love it when things like that work out! It also gave them lots of time to make sure the reception area was all set up and take more pictures, which was what they were doing when we arrived.

The reception was held at the Wing Point Country Club, where my Dad has been golfing since I was about seven. It's entirely possible that he spends more time there than at home (certainly more awake time there!). And-- just for the record-- it's really not nearly as snobby as the phrase "country club" sounds. Trust me on this. Back when my Dad joined, it was because the membership fee was the same as my sister's ballet lessons!

The reception was exactly what it ought to be: good food, lots of friends, and a lovely bride and groom running around trying to meet everyone, cut the cake, have their first dance, toss the bouquet, and then (sniff) leave. During all that, Ian found time to perform some magic tricks for Bentley and Kendra. It was hilarious, actually, because he'd meant for the button he had to disappear and then reappear in someone's ear, but it got dropped on the floor instead and he and I spent five minutes looking for the silly thing. When Ian finally located it, Bentley clapped his hands in sheer delight, then threw his arms in the air and said, "Do it again!" Gotta love an easy audience! Mostly I was impressed that Ian would find time during his own wedding reception to pay attention to my kids. I told you he was a good guy!

Rachael and Ian left with us waving sparklers in the air around them, and I managed not to cry then, too. It was an absolutely beautiful day. And I'm glad Rachael found such a great guy. I wasn't sad to be done with my heels, though!