January: My Grandmother died. We were able to attend her funeral in Utah. Sad occation, but I was happy to see everyone!
February: Snow! And snow. And snow. Loved it. Seriously. I know a lot of people hated it here but I thought it was the best winter we’ve ever had here. And probably WILL ever have here. Since that was the most snow the area had in 100 years, it’s a pretty good bet we’re not going to be here in another 100 years.
March: Pirate had surgery for a hydrocele. And he came through with flying colors! And he will probably have to do it again in 2011. Rats!
April: An adventure filled month with the boys breaking many things that month. They also turned 2. Coincidence? I think not!
May: Not only did Butterfly turn 5, but I moved my blog from blogger to it’s own domain. Now that my feeds are working (see the little icon at the top to sign up!) it’s just perfect. I love it here!
June: We went to Utah for vacation! We stayed a little over 2 weeks, and then we came back to Maryland with Juice’s niece (mine too, but she’s from his side of the family) Flower to stay with us. I LOVE having her here. And want her back next summer! It’s super nice to have a helper.
July: We spent the month filling it up with fun things to do around the area. Flower and I watched way too many movies. We went to the beach with friends. My camera then died. We spent the rest of the month desperately trying to cram more fun things into it.
September: I turned 30! My parents came to celebrate with me. We again did some fun things in the area. There are so many things to do here. We’ve been here almost 7 years and we still haven’t seen everything.
November: Juice went traveling for 2 weeks this month. First to San Diego (where we are NOT moving, sad to say) and then to Chicago. Also, Thanksgiving.
December: The build up to Christmas. Lots of fun parties! And an eclipse! And a lost tooth! And then we’ve had the puke fest for 2010. Where Pirate threw up one day. Then a week later, me. Then a day after me, Juice. Then two days after that (today), Butterfly. It’s been SUPER fun.
9th Grade! This was the year I met my husband, Juice. Yes. It’s true. We have known each other for, what, 16 years now? Today I’m reposting something I wrote several years ago about the night we met. And tomorrow, I’ll (hopefully) go through the rest of the year.
It was 11 years ago today (New Year’s Eve) that Juice and I met. Our church was having a youth dance. It was going to be my first one ever (you’re not allowed to go until you’re 14). All of my friends had been going to them all summer and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I was obsessive about writing in my journal at the time so I know exactly what was going on that day.
I was mad at my friend Jordan because he didn’t want to go with me to the dance. I really liked Jordan but he was not Mormon and I don’t think he really wanted to go to a Mormon dance. MusicMan, my brother, had to drive me to the stake center (which was just up the road) and we were late. As always. As I walked in, all of my friends were there and hanging out in a big circle. Kristie ran up to me to tell me that D had brought some boys that we didn’t know. That was a big thing since these dances are organized by stakes (a group of congregations in the same area, if you will) and you can only dance with the same boys so many times. Apparently. Kristie and I walked up to the circle, introductions were made and a slow song started. Juice turned to me and said, “You’re tall. Want to dance?” Of course I said yes and was probably happy I was tall for the first time in a long time.
Through the course of the evening, Juice and I danced almost all of the slow songs. Juice and I also played on the giant twister board that they had set up in another room of the church. The end game came down to me and Juice, and he beat me only because I was very embarrassed about so close to him. He gave me the candy he won in front of everyone. I remember offering some to Melanie and she hissed “NO! He gave it to you! Keep it all!” I think I still have a wrapper of the starbursts taped in my journal. He danced the last two dances with me. Kristie (being a very good friend at the time) gave him my number because I was too shy to do it myself.
Little did I know that Juice did like me because I was tall, and pretty. But did he like me enough to remember my name from that night? No. He had to call around and ask who I was before he could use my number. In Juice’s journal, he mentions me as the “pretty tall girl I danced most of the night with” and that’s it.
He did call me a few days later and we got together with friends and played Pictionary in my basement. Juice and I soundly beat Melanie and Max (his best friend, also at the dance that night) and we even slaughtered them at Charades. I think we hung out once more and then didn’t see each other until September that year. I was still in junior high and he went to high school.
My 10th grade year I don’t remember hanging out with him very much. I liked him a lot, but so did a lot of other girls. At the beginning of my junior year, he asked me to Homecoming [see above picture] (my first date!) and hung out every day after that. Okay, not EVERY day, but it was close. We were off and on dating until he went on his mission. I wrote him in Germany, and didn’t see him until a few months after he got back. We were both at BYU by then (my junior year again) and within 2 weeks of school starting, we were looking at rings together.
We were engaged on Nov 2, and 10 months later, married on Aug 4, 2001.
Hey look! Here I am. Again. With a list of things I haven’t been doing these past few days.
I haven’t been blogging because I HAVE been puking my guts out. Hello stomach flu!
I haven’t been blogging because I have been watching JUICE puke his guts out. Hello Stomach flu times two!
I haven’t been thinking of killing Juice MUCH because he’s been moaning in bed and I’ve been taking care of the kids. Who are well! And still kind of hyped up Christmas and candy! Whee! Oh and guess who was still feeling rather ill?
I haven’t been cleaning the house, except for doing laundry and trying to keep up on the dishes. All while being queasy and crabby.
I haven’t been feeding the children anything healthy for 3 days. One, because food was horribly awful. And two, because Little Cesar’s had coupons for free pizza. Pizza pizza!
I haven’t been going out to buy things we need…like bread, because of the stomach flu times 2.
So in conclusion, Juice and I have been sick. The kids are healthy. And yay for new toys. I don’t think we could have survived with out it!
What a fun day we had yesterday! And we are worn out. But it was amazing. We finished opening presents around 6:30pm. Which is sooner than we have done in years. The kids loved opening their presents. I made Professor cry once because I “helped” him open his present.
More to come but tonight, here are a few pictures!
Pirate opening a book from Uncle MusicMan and Aunt Angel. He has slept with it last night.
Professor got a firetruck! Thank you Sister!
One of many toys that Butterfly got. This one and her Leapster Explorer are the most played with so far.
Daddy got a sword!
Even though Daddy is sleeping on the couch, it doesn’t mean that he can’t play with toys!
On this joyous Christmas Eve, we (meaning me) drug the family out to the Washington DC Temple to see the lights. It was not very crowded and not very cold. Juice and I commented that this was the first year we didn’t take a stroller along. Wow the kids are growing up!
Here’s something for you to listen to think of the true meaning of Christmas:
Merry Christmas Eve!
Safire
PS- If you look on the back row at around 2:27 in the movie, you’ll see my brother singing! He’s the one behind the dude in the glasses on the 2nd to last row.
Every night before I put the boys in their beds, we read 2 stories. We sit in the rocking chair, and Professor needs either his binkie or his water. Pirate needs his blanket. Sometimes they convince me to read an extra story or rock them for a few minutes before getting them into bed.
Tonight, Professor found a binkie that we still have that he doesn’t like. Pirate has claimed it and likes to chew on it. Immediately, Professor had to have his OWN binkie. So up we go to find it. Once he had it and we were all back in the rocking chair, Professor turns to Pirate and smiles behind his binkie. Pirate smiles back, and they lean over to touch binkies. And then they giggled.
It was so adorable.
And then they leaned over and gave each other a huge hug. Took my breath away…so cute and sweet.
And then at 10pm I had to separate them into different rooms because they were.not.sleeping.
Today at school for spirit week is dress like a snowman day. Butterfly and I picked out things that were white for her to wear. But since she didn’t have white pants, she wore her great sparkly leggings because “when the sun shines on the snow it’s sparkly.” Okay.
Juice had a hat, I supplied a fun scarf, and off to school she went! Isn’t she an adorable snowman?
This snowman also lost her FIRST tooth today!! She lost it sometime at lunch at school. She’s not sure where it is. But she didn’t eat her apple because there “was a crunchy hard spot” in it. Ah ha. Still, no tooth to show but a gap! And the gap makes her look so big!
She wrote a note to the tooth fairy explaining what happened to her tooth and put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy to visit.
The letter says, “Dear tooth fat Dear tooth fairy I have lost a tooth at lunch in my school please find it! it It is at my school! please still bring me a present. It is at my school. And this is Butterfly work. Love Butterfly!” Then she drew a tooth.
This week is spirit week at Butterfly’s school. And because I think it’s important to involve kids as much as possible in their school, we jumped in with both feet. Today’s spirit showing activity? Crazy hair!
Is this crazy enough for you?
Butterfly thought it was SO funny. She couldn’t stop laughing. She also sat VERY still while Juice and I fussed over her. Want to know how we did it? We put a cup on her head and then combed her hair around it. Then we put the beads on and put a rubber band over them to hold them in place.
She came home with the beads and the cup in her back pack though. It was apparently very slippery and fell out before lunch.
