Just Stuff

There are a few things that I want to remember, so I thought I'd put it down here.
The other day Emma was eating some of her new favorite snack (garden vegetable cream cheese on Ritz) and as she stuffed a cracker into her mouth she said, "I'm obsessed with cream cheese!" Emma is very witty. She can come up with things on the spot that will make us laugh. She just asked how many Plutos we can fit in the Earth. Then she said, "We better ask Neil Armstrong about that."

As we were getting ready to go swimming, Josh was grabbing a bunch of stuff and naming everything he got. ("Let's get this towel, and this towel, and our passes...") Ryan looked at him and very seriously asked, "Do you need to hold me, too?" Then we set off for the pool. But we forgot something so we turned around and came back. As Josh was in the house, Ryan said, "Mom, did we go swimming?" He's funny.

Sophie crawls by scooting on her bum. She gets around pretty well and loves to make her way to the toyroom to play with the kids. She also pants like a dog whenever she sees an animal or hears the word 'dog.' The other day she misunderstood me and when I said "Dad," she panted like a dog.

Anna's birthday is coming up and she has promised that she will stop sucking her thumb when she's 5. She also is very excited to start school. We just got all her materials. She still runs wherever she goes, but she doesn't run into walls anymore. She is always entertaining us, but when it comes to specify, it's hard. She will often state something and then say, "right Mom?" For instance, "Monsters won't get us because they're not real. Right, Mom?"

Tyler spends much of his time imagining things for his next book or movie, asking questions about what is the hottest, what is the smallest, what is the ugliest, etc. and drawing pictures. He's very imaginative and creative. When he's not doing those things he's being a goofy boy. He likes to see how much goofiness he can get away with and I spend much of my time saying "Tyler" in a threatening tone. (Just thought I'd throw in a little Swifty.)

I wish I had a better memory, because there are so many things that the kids say and do that I forget within a day. Maybe these few little things will be enough to get me through when they are all grown.

Going on TEN!

(I was going to put a picture of us in 1999, but I didn't have one on this computer, and I was too lazy to get it from the other computer. So this is from 2008.)

Ten years ago today marks the anniversary of our first date. Since I'm feeling sentimental and long-winded, I decided to blog about it. I feel like giving a little history of my dating life just because it seems that it will help with the significance of what I went through with Josh. I didn't date in high school---at all. I went on my first date about a month after I graduated. Sometimes I missed it, but mostly I just liked being home or with my friends. When I went to BYU, I started dating a little more. My first year was mostly just hanging out with a bunch of my guy friends with a few dates thrown in. I dated more as the years went on, and I seemed to be the target for people anxious to pair up on blind dates. I hated blind dates. I got one who showed up wearing a disco wig. Did he really think that would make a good first impression? I got one who passed out if he studied too long. What a geek! (That was a little harsh. I'm sure he made someone very happy. He just wasn't for me.) Anyway, I learned to not trust people too much when it came to blind dates. Then came Lisa. She is quite insistent when she gets an idea. In December 1998, she set me up with a kid in her ward. He was pretty cute! The first blind date I'd had that I was actually attracted to the person! We had fun on our date, and even went out a second time. Nothing materialized, and I was okay with that because I knew he wasn't "my type." But I learned a valuable lesson from that experience. LISA CAN BE TRUSTED! (I trusted her in most things, of course, but had very little faith in anyone's ability to find a suitable blind date for me. This experience changed that.) So, then in March 1999, Lisa came to me and said, "I have someone I want to set you up with. He's really cool, but he's got a girlfriend. I'm waiting for him to break up with her, and then I'll give him your number." I said okay, because Lisa can be trusted. April came, and Lisa informed me that this guy had broken up with his girlfriend. "I'll give him some time to get over her, and then I'll give him your number," she said. Over the next few months I had to endure Lisa's endless questions of "Has he called yet?" to which I'd answer, "No." I was beginning to regret giving her permission to hand out my number. I WILL TELL YOU WHEN HE CALLS! In the meantime, I decided that I was tired of looking for the right guy to come along. I had a contract to intern at my favorite school in Provo, I was just a year away from graduating, I was making plans to go through the temple, I had plans. I was prepared to spend the next few years teaching school. I decided the Man Hunt could take a back seat. I was going to focus on me for a while. Then one Sunday afternoon in July, I got a phone call. I still remember the confused look on my dad's face as he handed me the phone and whispered, "It's a boy!" Yes, Josh had finally called. Not that I really had any expectations. After all, it's a blind date, right? I spoke to him for quite a while. With my plans for myself set in motion, I decided I didn't need to TRY to impress anyone. So, when he asked why I had moved back home, I told him that I was tired of roommates and ready to move on with my life. I thought that might sound a little forward, but hey, who cares? I was being honest. We made arrangements for our date that week. Josh invited Lisa and Brett to go with us as buffers. So, on July 20, 1999, Josh took me on our first date. We met at Lisa's house. I got there first, and I remember watching out the window as Josh and his brother and sister came walking up the street. (His brother and sister were babysitting Lisa's kids. They didn't just tag along to gawk.) I had to ask which of the boys was Josh. There was nervousness, just because it was a first, blind date. But I went in with no expectations. I was tired of having expectations and being disappointed. It was a concious decision to have no expectations. Still, he was pretty cute...

We decided to take my car, but Brett would drive, and Josh and I could sit in the back. We went to Applebee's for dinner. I told stories of my teaching adventures. I just remember that because I had a funny story of an escaped chicken at show-and-tell--all while I was being observed by my future employer. It still makes me laugh. I remember thinking that I liked that Josh seemed genuinely interested in what I was doing with my life. I also remember thinking that he had very skinny wrists. Then he signed his name to the receipt for dinner. Joshua Davis McFadden. I've always liked the name Joshua. But Davis is a family name for both of my parents. My brother's middle name is Davis. I have nephews with Davis for a middle name. I was planning on naming one of my own sons Davis (middle name). That's what got me thinking that I might start having expectations for this date.

We then ventured over to Mulligans to go miniature golfing. I was a little annoyed because it seemed so cliche for first dates. I hate cliche. But, whatever! No expectations, right? We had a blast! I'm horrible at miniature golf, so Josh kept fudging the score. Lisa and Brett kept letting themselves get ahead of us. (I wonder why they did that.) We got ice cream and went home. Once we got back to Lisa's house, the kids all came running out to greet us. Tyson and Megan visited with Brett and Lisa while Josh and I had the first-date-obligatory-I-had-fun-let's-do-this-again talk. I still didn't know whether that would happen. Then he gave me a quick hug. At the risk of sounding really dorky, I will continue. I had hugged other guys at the end of dates. I had hugged good friends. I had hugged guys I'd been attracted to. I'd felt the little butterflies of excitement when you get those kinds of hugs. This was nothing like that. There was a sudden rush of happiness, and I thought to myself, "I'm going to kiss him!" Now, having related my prior dating experience, you know that I had no experience in that area. I had even decided that I would rather not break someone's heart by kissing them and then telling them it's no good. So, for me to think that this is the guy I was going to kiss was a big deal. I took the kids into Lisa's house and waited for Tyson and Megan to finish talking to Lisa and Brett. This was really the only awkward part of the evening. Josh had said goodbye to me, but since everyone knew everyone (except me) they continued chatting. I figured the least I could do was go inside and wait. It made it less awkward for me to take the kids and pretend I was getting them to bed. I went home and haven't stopped smiling since. (That last part was really cheesy, but I was smiling remembering all the details of the night, so I thought I'd put it down.) Today we relived our date--without Lisa and Brett. They even played all 90s songs at Applebee's just to take us back...

Over the next few weeks I will relate other details of our dating time. (Don't worry. We didn't date too long, so it won't be that boring for you all.)

The time has come!

Well, I've heard enough to know that people miss me! I'm back in the blogging world. Between vacations and family time and late spring cleaning, blogging has been put on the back burner. I should have taken before and after pictures of my kitchen cupboards (which aren't quite finished) and my driveway. Our neighbors have a lovely, dirty tree which sheds all it's leaves, seeds, whatever, on our driveway and patio. We spent a full day cleaning up the mess, killing the weeds and cleaning the picnic tables. We moved our table and chairs up to our deck, and I love it. I was worried that my children would climb on the chairs and fall over the deck, which is why we haven't moved it before. But so far no one has been tempted to jump. We got our swingset (Christmas present) set up and our yard is looking much better. Still, there's a lot of weeding and trimming to do. Then we spent another full morning doing our kitchen cupboards. We got rid of 3 bags of things that are broken or unusable or just plain worn out. Funny enough, we still have plenty of things to do all our cooking! We will next move into our dungeon. Some people might call it a laundry room/food storage room. I call it a dungeon. Hopefully with a little organization and cleaning, I won't be afraid to go in there alone. What I'd really like to do is clear everything out and put in real walls and real windows and a real ceiling. But that will have to wait until we come into our fortune. In the meantime, I will just continue to watch HGTV and get all my ideas for what I will do with all that money once we get it.

Now, on to the fun stuff.

We have kept ourselves very busy this summer. We do school almost every day, we go on field trips, we go swimming, we play with cousins, we have piano, we ride bikes, we go to the park. We've been camping, we've been to Yellowstone, we've been to the temple open house, we've been to the air show, to plays, to museums, to parades. We've made jam and had family parties. We've had a blast and we are very tired. And summer's only half over! Cami said I needed a good excuse for not being a good blogger. Well, hopefully this is good enough. And here are a bunch of pictures to either entertain or bore.