thoughts on a sunday

• Got to start again somewhere.  Just jumping in to right now and I probably won't ever go back, so the last month is lost, but that's okay.  The kids are in bed and it's 7:08 pm so I really have no excuses.  I'm blogging tonight.

• Brian and I were talking about turning my blog into books.  I have had this plan all along and it's one of the reasons I am trying to keep going.  Anyone had any experience with doing this?  Anybody still reading this?

• Brian and his dad ran the St. George marathon last week.  I missed him, but was glad he got to run one of his favorite races.  He never has time to run anymore, so I am impressed that he took on a marathon.  He says if he didn't have races he would get fat.  

• We enjoyed general conference last weekend.  I can't wait to read the talks again because lets face it, I probably got about 70% with my three kids in the room with me.  I'm still trying to figure out if I want them to watch with us, or if it's better to just have them off playing so that we can really listen.  I am leaning towards having them play. . .

• On Sunday, between sessions, the whole Matthews family drove the Alpine Loop and had a picnic lunch up the canyon.  It was a beautiful drive- I haven't done it in like fifteen years.  

• This happened a couple of weeks ago, but it's become quite the family joke, so I better record it.  While watching the BYU game at Krista's we discovered that an extra cuddly Layla was really hot and had a fever.  We talked about how she had a fever, and must have mentioned it several times because she knew it.  As we were walking out to the car, she turned to Brian who was holding her, and said with a souci stuck in her mouth, "I got the fevah."  And she said it like an old Bostonian man, which was what made it so funny.

• She threw up on the way home, due to the fever, I guess.  It was gross, but I have definitely dealt with worse in the car.  

• This reminds me that I might not have written about the time that Layla had eaten chicken nuggets for lunch, threw up during her nap, and then told me, "I spilled chicken" when I got her out of bed.  

• Brian and I are still continually amazed at this little two year old we have.  Today we counted nine word sentences coming out of this girl.  She is smart.

• Yesterday while running errands with the girls, Ellery was absentmindedly singing a song about BYU.  My favorite line:  "Go Utes. . .no.  Go BYU.  Boo Utes.  Go BYU.  The cougars are really fun and they don't smoke!  That's why I like them!"

• We went to the Homecoming parade down at BYU yesterday.  I had never been before, and I have to say, it was a great parade.  Plenty of candy (even chocolate!), no crowds, short and sweet, and we even scored four tee shirts between the whole group.  That's a pretty good parade if I do say so myself.

• Brian took McKay to the BYU vs. Oregon State game after the parade.  I know they enjoyed it, even if their favorite team didn't win.  

• While they were at the game, I had a plan in mind for me and the girls.  I was going to put Layla down for an early nap, then we were going to go to Build-A-Bear and get Ellery an early birthday present (I had coupons that were going to expire).  It was a great plan, and Layla made it her personal mission to spoil it.  After awhile I noticed that she still hadn't fallen asleep.  This usually means one thing:  she pooped.  Sure enough, I opened the door and could smell that I was right.  What I didn't anticipate was what I would see.  Someone had gotten bored. . .and I guess creative.  There was poo all over.  It was caked on her hands so much that I couldn't even wash it off at the sink.  It was smeared on her sheet, flicked on her blankets and painted, quite seriously, on her bumper.  Her souci (one she was not using) was covered.  Of course, Layla went right into the bath, and I took apart her whole crib, well the bedding anyway.  It was really gross and really annoying.

• So back to my plans, I tried to put that naughty girl back in her bed and she just wasn't falling asleep.  So we went to the store anyway.  Ellery had asked for a stuffed golden retriever dog for her birthday.  I was trying to find one and had not had any luck.  Then I thought of Build-A-Bear and knew that she would love doing that.  I must admit, I had a lot of fun doing it with her.  I can't count the number of times we have window shopped in that store.  Many, many times.  Of course they always want to go in when we pass one, and of course they wish so much that they could buy one, and of course we never let them.  So this was a real treat.  She picked the least expensive bear (nice!) and we had so much fun picking out some outfits and accessories to go with the bear that is officially named Annie Jane, but has since been changed to Jolie, then Penelope, and now to Cookies.  

• After that, we had a quick dinner and headed up to Gardner Village with the Allreds and Botts for the witch night.  Bri and Mack met us there.  I had never been, but by the way Lisa described it to me it sounded really fun.  Wow.  There were a lot of women there.  Like SO many women.  And most of them were dressed as witches.  And although my kids had so much fun, it was a little too crowded for me.  We decided we went a bit too late in the evening for kids, because the crowds made it hard to go anywhere and it's always stressful to have multiple kids to keep track of in gigantic crowds.  

• Today we enjoyed going to baby Afton's blessing.  We had totally forgotten about it, until at about 8:30 this morning when we were all snuggling in our bed I remembered.  We were a bit panicked while Brian checked for the email telling the time of the blessing, hoping quite desperately that it wasn't at nine.  It was eleven.  Phew!

• Lets see. . .what else.  Ah, I know.  Ellery has been learning the song  Simple Gifts in preschool. I can't even describe how much I love hearing her sing "Tis a gift to be simple.  Tis a gift to be free.    Tis a gift to come down where you want to be..."  I love it so much.

• The other day Brian was off so I walked McKay to school by myself, without the girls in the stroller.  We held hands the whole way there and he was a chatterbox, as usual.  I really loved it and thought to myself that that time of him not wanting to hold my hand is probably near. 

• After I dropped McKay off I went on a walk/hike on some of the trails on the mountain behind our house.  Although I love walking with my girls (actually I don't really like it) it felt so great to not have the stroller and just be free to take my body anywhere I wanted.  

• Cheese and crackers for lunch one day.  Layla's interpretation:  Cheese and crappers.  Repeated many times.

• This happened a couple weeks ago, but after Ellery threw up two mornings in one week, we finally decided to take her in to the doctor for her vomiting problem.  I talked with the doctor for almost an hour about her, and he decided he wanted to make sure we rule out everything else it could be before we call it cyclic vomiting syndrome.  The next day we took her to have her blood drawn to test for common food allergies.  Those results were normal.  He had said that he wants her to see an allergist, maybe have a head scan (morning vomiting can be a sign of a brain tumor- I think this is very unlikely) and maybe see a pediatric GI specialist.  So I don't really know what the next step will be- it was kind of unclear in the appointment.  I hope that it's some obscure allergy like mango or something.  That would be pretty easy to handle.  She is a trooper though.  She was really scared to give blood, and screamed pretty loud before they poked her.  Once it was in, she was fine.  

• I have been a busy little bee lately and am up to my neck in "projects".  Many, various projects.  Most pressing, however, are Halloween costumes and Elle's birthday party on Thursday.  I can't wait until the costumes are done- I am very excited about them!  But I really feel like I need to finish up all these projects I have piled up before I start thinking about, hmmm. . .I don't know. . .Christmas projects!  This pic above is the sweet loot we scored at DI for Mack's costume.  When you go in to DI looking for a white tunic, an old, rustic belt and some brown stretchy pants you really never think you're going to find them.  But we did!  All in one shot!  It was really awesome.  

Okay, done for tonight!  Hopefully I won't wait so long next time.  This took me forever!!!

Happy Sunday!