Couldn't have been cuter

The girls got to take a dance class from a friend who did an awesome job. They loved every minute of it and we sure loved just watching them (as opposed to normal dance studio's recitals where you watch other kids for hours) perform 4 whole dances at the recital. They even had a solo number :) which was hilariously adorable. I'll add the video later for family that didn't get to come but here are some too-cute-for-words pictures for starters!
The whole gang:
Sisterly love:
Aah! Too much love!
Nice smiles and excellent form girls (this is just too funny not to include):

We're sure going to miss the dancing and all of our friends!!

Our summer home

So there was a request to see what our house looks like. I have kept putting off taking pictures until I had the house looking decent but I find myself rather unmotivated to get it fully unpacked and/or to keep it tidy when I have. Sigh. The knowledge that it's just for 4 months is not helpful. Nor is the lazy part of me. So here are the pictures in all their messy glory, starting with Meri's room, which requires a bit of an explanation. When Meri gave up naps we instituted quiet time, where they both have to stay quietly in their own rooms for at least an hour by themselves. They are welcome to read or color or sleep if they so choose. Meri's room always ends up looking like this or much worse by the end of quiet time:
Who knows what she does! Then there's Jell's room:
We don't feel like investing in curtains for 4 months but if her window isn't blocked off she wakes up with the sun. Oh, and the grandma rug? Our rooms are in the basement with cold tile for floors. This will be fabulous for keeping us cool throughout the summer months but the floor is COLD, so we borrowed Coop's grandma's rug that was in his parents' garage. Not our style, but again, not going to invest in a rug for 4 months. Like her red moving box book shelf on the left?
Then there's one of the bathrooms. There are 3 in this crazy big house, and the ridiculous thing is we use them all. The smart thing to do would be to close one off and keep it clean, but who's smart? Now we are SO grateful for this house and all the space but there are a few quirky things about it, take this bathroom for example:
It is very small because of the huge closet seen at right, which has space for a washer and dryer (although 1/2 inch too little space to fit our washer and dryer naturally). The door opens in, which it can't do much with Meri's stool in the way. However, every time I try to move her stool, she moves it back because she can't reach to wash her hands without it. Hard to blame her really. I should applaud the fact that she's actually remembering some hygiene! But do try to imagine going in the bathroom, forgetting to turn on the light (the switch is in the hallway), going back in, trying to get a towel out of the closet (no door handles on those doors and you have to close the other door first), wash hands or do much of anything without running into a door. This is getting increasingly difficult for my prego belly to manage. It's awkward indeed. Sadly, this is the main bathroom available to all.
Then there's the kitchen with it's fantastic counter space:
Also pictured here is my arch nemesis: the fridge. It worked for our first few days in the house, stopped for nearly a week, worked for a week, and gave out a few days ago (the freezer hasn't worked more than a day the whole time). The repair man came yesterday and confirmed that it is kaput. So currently our milk and a few other perishables I'm trying to salvage are in a cooler and I kick the fridge every time I walk by. But I do love the counters.
And standing at the edge of the kitchen, this is the rest of the room:
And all of our favorite, the play room:
I LOVE that the toys have a home and for the most part, stay there. On good days, it is clean ... for a few minutes here or there. Mostly I try not to look :)
And then the office/guest room which is supposed to be the master bedroom, but is on the main floor (20 degrees warmer than the basement. no air conditioning in the house) with curtain-less windows everywhere:
So anyway, this is where we are currently hanging out. Sorry for the novel. I didn't include pictures of our bedroom, because it's piled high with all the clothes I need to go fold and put away now. Nor of the other bathrooms, which I have yet to unpack. One of these days, right?

Loving this comic lately

My grandpa used to have a sign up in his office that read, "Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids." :)

Things NOT to do when you move:

1. Have lots of stuff. Where did it all come from and why can't I just throw it all out?
2. Rent a truck that is too small to bring all your stuff. (We did this when we moved from Utah too - why didn't we learn? Just cheapos I guess. Coop had to make two trips this time! Good thing it's only 90 minutes away!!!)
3. Be pregnant. I feel a little useless really and so overdid it so many days in a row that I spent most of moving day and the day after sitting down with my feet up. Pathetic.
4. Forget how much time the little stuff and last-minute cleaning really takes.
5. Have your fridge stop working. It worked for like the first 2-3 days here, then we realized the freezer wasn't cold enough so we turned that up and poof! the whole thing stopped working. Lovely. After throwing out most of what we'd just stocked up on, and trying the whole ice-bag-in-the-fridge-(making it just a giant cooler)-until-the-ice-bag-melts-all-over-the-floor-(making you worry about what's leaking until your brain starts actually working) thing. Then when you've given up on living any kind of civilized life ... poof! it all starts working again magically. Can it be trusted????
6. Have your daughter Meri get sick. Not one of those silly little 24-hour bugs. How about a week-long raging fever tipping 105, making her so miserable that she never sleeps for more than an hour before waking up crying about her tummy or some other part of her little aching body. All she wanted was to be held and rocked - which was a tad difficult to do in a sea of boxes.
7. Neglect your daughter Jell, who becomes bored out of her mind because her sister's not feeling well enough to play (so you never leave the house) and all you ever do is rock or unpack or fall asleep sitting up. Poor thing.
8. Unpack boxes with the blue tape designation, meaning they were intended for permanent storage. Not to be opened. This means you either leave out stuff you don't really need for these 4 months or repack a box that you just flattened. Sigh.
9. Try to find anything. It's better to just do without. Who needs to cut fingernails anyway?
10. Have the nagging reminder that in 4 months, you have to do it all over again ... 9 months pregnant.

Despite this, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your help! We couldn't have survived without you all! And we're doing much better already - evidenced by the fact that I have the time to actually write this email :)

Sounds like my house

(Click on it if you can't see the whole thing)
This is my life right now - except the boxes are all coming out of the attic and stacking up in the garage and living room.
My favorite quotes from Jell about moving:
A dad of one of Jell's friends in the ward asked if she would still come back sometime and play on their trampoline. Jell responded slowly as if considering it and said, "Welllll, we will be coming back a lot ... BUT we do have a lot of people to see." I don't think that made him feel like much of a priority :)

"Mom, today at preschool we had a PARTY! For me! Because we're moving and I won't be at preschool anymore and my friends are going to miss ME SOOOOOO much! They are SO sad!"

"Mom, I told my friends about the big yellow truck we're getting that will be big enough to hold ALL OUR CLOTHES and they could NOT believe it!" When I told her it would actually be big enough for all our beds and other furniture, she could not believe it - "NO WAY!"

"MOM!!! (Jell comes running in holding a box of band-aids) What if we get an owie when we're in The Dalles?!?"
Me: "I suppose we'll put a band-aid on it"
Jell: "You CANNOT forget to pack this mom! What if we get an owie? DO NOT forget to pack the band-aids!"

And then there was the discussion about our strawberry plants in our backyard that I have so lovingly cared for and molded into a lovely patch. I pointed out how many strawberries we were going to have very soon and then said, "Well, actually they won't be our strawberries anymore by the time they're ripe. Sad."
Jell: "Mom, they will always be OUR strawberries."
Me: "Not really. We won't be living here anymore."
Jell: "Yes but we planted them and we growed them. They are OUR strawberries."
Me: "Except for another family will live there and water them and keep them growing so really they will be their strawberries then."
Jell: "No mom. They're OUR strawberries. We growed them and it's only for four months."
Me: "Oh honey, we probably won't be coming back to our same house because somebody else will be living there then."
Jell: "They will still be OUR strawberries."
The sad part of this conversation is I realized she doesn't really get the whole moving thing. The funny part of her being so insistent is she doesn't even like strawberries and never would have eaten a single one of them. I, on the other hand, have been looking forward to them pretty much since the season was over and they stopped producing last summer. Not even to mention the raspberries that are looking oh so promising already. Sigh. Fortunately I can take some solace in the fact that one of the blueberry bushes that I so excitedly planted just last fall is looking quite dead.

The Move

So I've been putting off writing about the move because, I don't know, once it's written it's final and really happening and there for posterity to read about. Something like that. Oh and I've been packing frantically every minute and haven't had the energy to spare. So Coop is graduating with his masters next month and he's been applying to jobs all over and we've been praying some of the most sincere prayers of our lives. Everything has been going very discouragingly slow up until a couple of weeks ago.
On April 19th I was searching for jobs for Cooper and did a specific search in Central Oregon because Cooper was going to be headed out to Redmond the next day to do a presentation to the city out there. I found an internship with the city of The Dalles, he called to see if it had already been taken, filled out an application and snail mailed it before 5 that day. However, snail mail needs a new name because before 24 hours had passed he got a call from The Dalles assistant city manager to set up an interview for the next week, April 27th. So he drove out that day, apparently did well in the interview, and received a phone call the afternoon of the 29th offering him the position and asking him to start on May 10th. You might not have a calendar in front of you but that happened fast! And for those of you not familiar with Oregon geography, The Dalles is located in the Gorge exactly an hour and a half from home.
We very quickly weighed all our options - did he just rent a room there and come back to us on the weekends? could we swing a place there and here? did he commute daily? should we just stay in our ward and come back every weekend? None of those turned out to be feasible or very realistic so we are packing up and moving our little herd to The Dalles. That means our lovely house will get rented out to somebody else so we're saying our goodbyes to all the walls and ceilings and such. That meant we were sadly released from our callings on Sunday and are leaving behind the ward we both grew up in and have now lived and served in for 4 years, and will be deeply missing the most amazing friends. Seriously they're amazing - I've hardly seen my kids for the past week as we and now I (Coop started work today) have been trying to pack and clean everything out in less than 2 weeks time. Where have they been? My friends are amazing. They've taken them and kept them in their homes until I know they must've worn out their welcome and then kept them for a few hours more. THANK YOU!!!!! And we will be moving away from nearly all the family we have. I know it's only an hour and a half, and we will be back tons (I'm not even switching doctors for my pregnancy) but we've been very spoiled here and have loved having such close relationships with aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, great-grandmas, great-grandpas, cousins, etc.
And yet, we know that this was an answer to prayers and are very grateful for the opportunity - it's exactly what Cooper would like to be doing and will give him great experience to add to the resume at the very least. It is a reminder that we don't always get to pick how our prayers are answered but we know the Lord knows best. So we are off on our new adventure. The official move date is this Saturday although nearly everything is packed up already, with just some serious cleaning left to do. And so we take this leap of faith, not quite knowing what will happen for the long term (will we have a job by the end of this one? where will we be when this baby comes in September? if we'll be moving back here where will we live? if we're not coming back here than to where and how when I'm 9 months pregnant? where will Jenelle start kindergarten in the fall? etc, etc), and keep praying and trusting that the next step will be revealed in good time and everything will work out for the best. So, The Dalles, here we come!
Oh, and the girls amazingly still find some joy in the chaos of packing:

Drum roll please ...

So I know we weren't going to find out, and I really didn't want to find out because I look forward to the surprise and think it's fun and maybe I'm just a little crazy and enjoy people looking at me like I have a screw loose for 9 months (which people do anyway cause I'm pregnant with my 3rd and who does that anymore?), but since we're moving (more on that in a bit) I kinda needed to know if the baby girl clothes should go in permanent storage or remain accessible. That was a long sentence. Let me take a breath. Okay, so we had the ultrasound today, with a new game plan and recommence the drum roll please ... IT'S A BOY!! It was totally obvious, but even then because of the packing incentive, I asked the lady if she could 100% guarantee that because you know, it's happened before to people I know that they were wrong, and she looked at me like I was daft and pointed out the specific boy parts which were hardly being shy. So away into storage goes all bows and everything pink! It's a boy!!
P.S. I'll post later about the move.

I Want to be a Missionary Now

After an inspirational workshop at Women's Conference on Sunday about "How to Prepare Your Children to be Missionaries," we decided we needed to follow the advice and talk about our missions more. So for family home evening we went through my very fat mission scrapbook. We had fun! The next night during family scripture prayer Jell announced, "I want to go on a mission when I get bigger." Yes! Success! Then she said, "So I can do lots of silly things like Mommy did." Uh, what? See in retrospect, the problem with mission pics are that they're either taken on P-day, at night when you've worked your brains out, when you're leaving an area or when there's a baptism. None of the day-to-day what-missionaries-actually-do is recorded - just stuff like getting stuck trying to climb over a fence, or your companion ironing your hair with an actual iron, or your district leader making balloon animals in the mtc for somebody's birthday or the elders getting their faces shoved in their birthday cake by a Hispanic member family, or ... you get the picture. So not so much a success (don't you love how kids ALWAYS get the wrong thing out of what you're trying to teach them?) and we might have to do that FHE over again and leave out the pictures. Sometimes visual aids only get in the way.
Oh and by the way, don't ask what they're wearing. My kids tend to look like little vagabonds with their layered looks - Meri added her dress when she was pretending to be Belle, who can't be played in jeans and a sweater. And Jell added the second skirt "when [she] wanted to." I guess where one is good, two is better. Lately, Meri's favorite beautifying tip is to go into the bathroom, stick her head under the faucet, and rub her hair all around till it's half wet and sticking out in a million different directions. Whenever we ask why she did it, she responds, "Because I wanted to look pretty" and does the smile and shoulder shrug seen in the first picture along with a little batting of her eyes. Oh boy. Yet somehow, despite their severe fashion handicaps, they still pull off "cute!"

Ah! The beautiful tulip festival...

So I included slightly less than a tenth of the pictures we took. With such gorgeous surroundings and such cute subjects, it's hard to stop snapping pictures! Jell was a little distraught to discover she didn't fit inside the shoe as well as she did last year while Meri still disappeared inside:
Not sure what the tulips did to deserve this grumpy face but it's sure one I'm familiar with:
The girls only smelled a gazillion tulips this day - do the different colors really smell that different?
Some of the tulips were nearly as tall as Meri, and with her headband, she looked like she almost fit in!
Where have you been all my life? Love the drama and enthusiasm in all she does:
And the posing:



Somehow we made it home without any major encounters with the mud puddles, I mean lakes, and without caving in to the girls' requests for rides, popcorn, ice cream, or any other thing for sale that they laid eyes on. All in all, a beautiful family outing (Coop was there too, although he didn't make it in any of the photos)!

Jell really likes to tape her creations on the walls

Resulting in our family room, kitchen, her bedroom and even our bedroom walls being covered in her drawings/paintings. I, of course, make an effort to make sure Meri is also represented but it's rather hard to keep up with the tape machine. Here are just some of the things taped up around the house, starting with the infamous brachiosaurus, which has probably replaced her three-headed monster as my favorite drawing of all time:
I might need to switch these up. For example, I think it's time the Christmas tree comes down:
And the three-headed monster makes its appearance, although the difficult one to see on the left is the most intricate with two witches holding hands with their cats, train tracks, and a train going over three mountains.
This is evidence that she gets carried away. She drew this banana as quickly as she could for the sole purpose of taping it on the wall:
Then comes the grand tamale. Jell drew this lovely portrait of herself surrounded by me and Coop standing under a beautiful rainbow. Meri was upset she wasn't included. Jell brushed it off and, this is the best part, taped it up in the grand place of honor right where a family portrait had recently fallen off the wall and we hadn't got around to replacing it, right over Coop's and my bed. That way we got to see it always. Unfortunately, so did Meri. She kept insisting Jell add her and for whatever reason Jell kept not caring. So Meri took matters into her own hands. The squirt on the right that looks a little like a googly-eyed alien? That's Meri's addition of herself. She was quite pleased with her efforts. Jell was upset that it didn't look like Meri, which led us into a talk about only being complimentary about other people's artwork especially when, like Mer, they did their best (although I also liked the idea that Jell's were totally realistic. Nice mohawk Coop). And besides, you snooze you lose. Now our family portrait is complete:

Where did my brain go?

I think I've lost my mind. I'm hoping I'm not the only one. So I'm asking, do you ever have the kind of day where...

you're singing a primary song that you've known since you were in Sunbeams and you're on autopilot while your mind is wandering and you suddenly don't know where you are in the song or which verses you've already sung or what rhymes with what you just said and could possibly come next?

you leave your wallet at the grocery store, don't manage to notice until you get all the way home with kids unbuckled, have to go all the way back and after scouring the parking lot, find they had it inside all along?

not only can't seem to interpret a single thing your toddler has said correctly but mishear adults on the tv like every five minutes?

you assure your husband that you have a bag of nectarines that you've been enjoying all week, he doesn't believe you, you keep insisting, before he realizes you're actually talking about tangerines?

you're trying to help your daughter calm down for bed by singing sweetly but suddenly feel a little night drunk yourself and start giggling and are unable to keep a straight face because the brachiosaurus that your daughter drew and taped above her bed looks so goofy?

I've lost my mind.

Weeeeeeeee!

We'll take any breaks in the rain - no matter how short they may be. We love spring!


Also, overheard this conversation in the car:
Meri: "I want to sit by my FAVORITE big sister because she's my FAVORITE big sister to sit by."
Jell: "THANK YOU Meri! That is SOOO sweet of you!"

I loved that there was no sarcasm in Jell's response, nor any half-hearted compliment intended by Meri. Instead, Jell sincerely appreciated and was touched by Meri's remarks without the thought entering her head that she is her ONLY big sister.

Olympics 2026 here we come!

This last week we went to my parent's house in Bend. We had a blast! But the morning we were going to leave, Jell got up and packed herself:
Meaning of course, she emptied most her drawers in a big pile on her bed. Helpful!
The hope for this trip was that we'd get the girls up skiing for the first time. My dad, the avid weather channel watcher had picked the perfect conditions and was super stoked. Just getting them up there and in all their equipment took quite a bit of doing but we finally succeeded and even got them to their lessons nearly on time. We got out there and were reminded of the blinding nature of a sunny day with white snow all around. We had to go buy sunglasses for Meri so she wasn't like this all day:
She did so great! Her instructor was super nice, and although she never once said a word to him, I think she liked him too. Her skis were so stinking little!
Documentation of her first fall ever:
Oh and she never smiled during her first lesson but she gave everything a try and said she enjoyed it:
And look, she even did some all by herself!! What a perfect pie :)
Sadly, we didn't get any pics of Jell actually skiing because every time she noticed us during her lesson, she wanted us to get her a snack or something else distracting like that. So we watched from afar. Plus I got tired out from tromping in the snow and parked myself at a table with a good book and all our supplies for most the day. But Jell loved it too - her lesson didn't take her to the lift and the bunny hill and so as soon as she was done, she was begging Bopa to take her over there. She didn't even want to take a break.
Meri had told us she was all done, but we finally convinced her after some "warm chocolate" (they don't like it hot) to go back out with daddy. From that time on they were both really hooked. They only reluctantly stopped for breaks when daddy and Bopa's knees or backs couldn't take anymore. I really wish I'd got pictures of Jell with the harness (that's the blue thing she's wearing - it's not a swimsuit) or Meri between daddy's legs, but the bunny hill was a bit of a hike from my picnic table. It didn't happen.
Even though they didn't want to stop, they enjoyed all the food mommy had lugged up there. And don't they look cool? People all around me would laugh and aaaah every time the girls came to see me. They looked so cute and Meri so teeny tiny to be on skis! I guess that most of the time they were skiing down the bunny lift, they kept yelling out, "I got another gold medal!!!!" Next time Jell will have to master turning left. This trip, she could only ever figure out how to turn right. That does become a problem after awhile! Thanks so much Bopa for giving them one heck of a perfect day! Can't wait to go again!

Can't wait to meet #3!

So I thought I'd better get around to officially announcing it, although by now most of the world knows because
a) you've seen one of the girls in the last few weeks which means that they have proudly told you (they've told everyone - as proof they told the bagger at the grocery store the other day) or
b) you caught on when you either saw me running to the bathroom gagging or heard how many naps I've been taking lately or
c) someone in the ward told you. Word travels fast once it gets out.
Anyway, it is true - I'm pregnant! We're very, very excited even while we have the foreboding feeling that we're getting in way over our heads. 3 sounds crazier than 2. I'm also happy to now be in my second trimester as the first one wasn't much of a joy ride. Translation= I've been sicker than a dog. At least 10 x worse than the other two times, but hopefully, hopefully, hopefully things get better soon. The girls are beyond thrilled. Since telling them, we've had all sorts of fun conversations (most of which have been repeated again and again), such as:

Meri - "It doesn't look like you have a baby in my tummy. Are you sure?
Me - "Yep, it's in there."
Meri - "Can I see it?"
Me - "Not really." (never stops her from trying)

Jell - "Is the baby sleeping right now?"
Me - "Probably. It does a lot of sleeping."
Jell - "Does it sleep when you sleep?"
Me - "A lot of the time, yeah."
Jell - "Does it sleep while you go potty?"
Me - "I have no idea. Maybe I guess."

Me - "What should we name the baby if it's a boy?"
Meri - "I don't like baby boys. It's going to be a baby girl."
Me - "It might come out a baby boy though."
Meri - "Nope. It'll come out wearing a beautiful dress like me (as she twirls)!"
Me - "Actually, the baby won't come out wearing any clothes. The baby will come out nakie."
(Meri and Jell both just stared at me for like 5 seconds, and then both started laughing their heads off. We spent a few minutes explaining that I wasn't lying to which they kept lying. However, at least Jell has decided to believe it because I heard her explaining to an adult the other day, "the baby in my mommy's tummy will come out nakie." Excellent.)

Jell - "How does the baby in your tummy eat?"
Me - "It gets the food that I eat."
Jell - "So you eat the food, and then it eats it with it's mouth?"
Me - "Not exactly. It doesn't have to eat it with it's mouth. It just goes into the baby from mommy."
Jell - "So it eats with it's mouth?"
Me - "Nope, it couldn't do that very well - the baby doesn't have any teeth."
Jell - (laughs her head off) "When the baby is born, will it eat crackers?"
Me - "Nope, it still won't have teeth for awhile. It'll just drink milk."
Jell - "Where will it get the milk?"
Me - "From mommy."
Jell - "But you can't make milk. Where will you get the milk?"
Me - "Uh, I'll uh, have the milk."
Jell - "Can I color now?"
Me - "YES! I'm done with this conversation too."

Also, Meri asks me daily when the baby is going to come - which is going to make the remaining months very long. And oddest of all perhaps, is they've already starting hiding their valuables up high (like a pretty purse on the top of a tall lamp) "so the baby won't drool on them." Classic.

Princesses galore

On to her princess party with friends. This was about as cute as it can get. When we went outside to blow bubbles, no joke people on walks and even cars stopped to say hi, ooh and aah, and comment on their adorableness. There were too many cute pictures to choose from so I had to make a slide show instead :) I'm a sucker.

And thank you for all the help from family that made pulling it off possible!

Meri's birthday

So I know her birthday was nearly three weeks ago now, but these pictures are too cute to not get posted - even if they're EXTREMELY late. These are from her actual birthday when we celebrated just with family. So here they are:This was the best reaction of any of her presents from anybody. We were at home just opening the presents from us, while she sat in the "birthday chair," aka car seat. She opened it, stared at it for awhile, then in slow motion changed her face to expressionless to this face and then hugged the Disney compilation (mostly princesses) cd we'd made for her with a look of pure blisss. Yeah, I think she liked it.
We'd been working on this for weeks beforehand, but she is now very proud to show anyone and everyone how old she is.
Our beautiful princess enjoying her "Happy Birthday" song.
And then enjoying her unladylike no-hands method of devouring her cupcake ... or actually of just devouring the "good" part of the cupcake that had frosting and sprinkles. She left the bottom half.

AGAIN!

Hello, all! I know you'd all rather hear from Alisha, but I worry she won't post this, and it NEEDS to be posted.

Some of you may remember this post from September (http://coopedup.blogspot.com/2009/09/never-ceases-to-amaze.html)--I think it was the last time I posted. It was the first time she had a painting accepted into the Watercolor Society of Oregon (WSO) fall show. Well now I'm posting to say that she just got accepted into the WSO Spring show! The accepted painting is "The River's Dance:"


It blows me away that with all we have going on in our lives, she still finds the time to be incredibly talented!