Some things about March I forgot to tell you

The last week of March the Archibald's came to visit! We had fun in Baltimore at the National Aquarium, in Washington DC, at Valley Forge, and locally at the Herr's Potato Chip factory and Old New Castle.

We started the party in Baltimore. We'd never been to Baltimore for a visit before...any we decided there might be a reason why. It is a little bit sketchy in some places. But the Aquarium was awesome and we loved seeing all of the fishes. We also went to little Italy for dinner. The kid's meal beat all in price and quality. It even came with a mini cheese cake! Good thing we have a little kid we can say we are getting a kid's meal for!



We went to Old New Castle and the Herr's Potato Chip factory. I love the potato chip factory. They let you eat fresh out of the salter potato chips. They are still warm and so delicious!

I like this wall in Old New Castle...and I was borrowing a Canon Rebel.

For a little drama, I have to tell you of our trip in Old New Castle. We stopped at a little coffee shoppe to have some delicious hot cocoa.

Doesn't it look good?

We sat down, ready to sip our warm drink and an accident took place involving a small red headed child. Hot chocolate was on the floor, on my pants, on the table. And then when she drank some more a little later, through a straw, she spit it out all over Erik. It was slightly embarrassing and frustrating, but also humorous. My favorite part was the lady who cleaned up the floor sprayed Windex on it (My Big Fat Greek Wedding). Haha. Who knew?

After the spill...and still smiling.

"Did you spill your hot cocoa? Let me feed you chocolate balls!" 

In Washington DC we saw an awesome IMAX movie in the Museum of Natural History about monarch butterflies and this guy from Canada who wanted to know where monarchs go in the fall. I always thought bugs just died, but it turns out they migrate to Mexico. He spent his whole life tracking them and then he finally saw one with his tag on it in Mexico! Ever three generations a monarch is genetically able to fly to Mexico. It lives longer and knows that is where it is supposed to go! It was really fascinating!

Alyssa found this Chimp and she fell in love with him.

She sat almost 10 minutes with her hand on his head.

We also went to the National Cathedral and to the Washington DC temple. Alyssa was very excited to see the temple and Jesus. She wanted to climb all over Him and sit at His feet. She really knows who Jesus is and she loves Him very much. It amazes me how much love young children have for the Savior. She teaches us a lot through her simple adoration of Him.

Saturday was spent at Valley Forge. We had a great tour guide who told us about the encampment there. It was not pleasant, but it was an excellent location. General President Washington was truly an inspired man!

Alyssa was so sad to see Nana and Papa and Maria go. When they left on Sunday night she put on her coat and shoes because she wanted to go with them.

Pictures without People

Dad always told me to put a person in my picture. I used to take pictures, back when it was film and not all digital, of the flowers in our garden. I remember a few pictures of snap dragons. They were beautiful! But I learned: put a person in your picture.

Well, I'm taking a break from people in my pictures for just a short story.

I got a book from the library for Alyssa called Hippospotamus. It is about a hippo who has a spot on her bottom and all these animals tell her different ways to get it off and then at the end you find out it is bubble gum.

When I read it to Alyssa she always says "bubble gum" on the first page and on the last page. Here is the first page.

Here is the last page.

One day I asked Alyssa to point to the bubble gum. This is where I became very surprised as to Alyssa's understanding of bubble gum. Please, aside from the bubble gum and the hippo, what is the same in both of these pictures? Did you notice it? Yes, the frogs. I had not even noticed this! But, indeed, the frogs truly are in both of the pictures and when I asked Alyssa to point to the bubble gum she proudly pointed to the frogs and said "bubble gum"!

maybe one day she won't move when I take her picture, but you can still see her great smile!

My second no subject picture is of our pillows. I try really hard to get laundry done all in one day, but it just doesn't work sometimes (like ever). And our sheet situation is such that I need all the pillowcases I own for all of our pillows regardless if they are matching. We prepared for bed too late one night and I had the horrible realization that I hadn't washed the pillowcases so Erik suggested shirts. And that is what we used for our pillows.

The Eternal Perspective

On April 17, 2013 Grandma Mary passed on. I think for most of us it was a good, ok thing to see her go. It's never quite easy to say good bye, but it was her time, and she is now much happier where she resides. I imagine she had quite a joyous reunion with loved ones who were waiting to welcome her back.

I felt like it was an interesting build up for me, personally, to her passing. In one of my book groups I read "Our Town" by Thorton Wilder. In the final act a young mother passes away and the scene is told from the view of those who have already passed on. From the words written and the conversations that ensued, I gained a perspective of our life on earth as it falls into place with our life in the eternities. For now our sight is limited and when we see one whom we love so dearly slip out of this world, our hearts ache and we miss them terribly. But we must remember that this life is not the end. A great continuation is beginning for that individual! Maybe some of our aching comes from our desire to be with them and progress on beyond this frail existence.

Grandma was spunky but stern. I often think of her telling me to put my shoes and stockin's on. She would do little dances and wave with gusto when we left her house. She fed all of us thousands of cinnamon graham crackers. I remember trying to suck on it slowly on the way home to make it last the entire 20 minute ride from her house to our house. I will never forget the time Jacob and I were climbing over the backs of her and Grandpa's sitting chairs and tore the doilies off that she used to have pinned to them...I say used to because we after we did that we never saw those doilies again. I remember the sweatshirts she always had stored in her closet for us to wear if the canyon wind was blowing cold at night. They were navy blue and smelled just like her. We had endless slurpees and coffee runs to 7 Eleven. She even let Porter try coffee once. She would mimic Claire's own pronunciation of her name. I don't remember it exactly but I think Claire omitted the L and would kind of let the r flair a bit. Grandma loved the way Claire said "Claire". We went through a few years of endless teasing about me getting the Jeep that I affectionately named Ernie. It didn't happen, but the jest was fun. We gardened together, cleaned her levelers together, and sat on her patio together. She loved her flowers, her hanging pots, poppies, and irises. She always had petunias in the rock bed made as a memorial to Uncle Kelly. She watered them so carefully, just so. She loved her golf. She loved her shorts. She stood with her heels together and her toes pointed outwards with her hands in her pockets. Her body language spoke volumes. She would wiggle her shoulder just so with a little smile. She would twist her hips and swing her arms. She was charismatic. She didn't like to get wet in the water fights but she was always good for a laugh! She cared for those around her, especially Grandma Doran. She would read to her, paint her nails, play games with her. She served in the temple and was amazed at the number of brides that would come through during the summer! She taught Relief Society though it gave her great grief. She played Free Cell...probably the only thing she ever did on the computer...regularly. She bought me work books and had a box just for us during our visits full of paper and markers and crayons. I remember the markers were those "bold" colors, the ones that weren't quite real colors in my opinion. But they were still markers. She was always so pleased with our successes and so supportive of our nonsuccesses (cough cough piano). She loved us. She was "delighted". Her food was "bodacious". And she was  "just wonderful"!

I don't remember a lot of what our conversations entailed, but she was always there. I am grateful I knew her and that I have her legacy to follow, for she was a great woman.

So though I miss Grandma. And I have missed her for quite some time because she has not been quite herself for awhile. I know that I will see her again. I know that because of the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ and the incomprehensible Atonement that He performed, we will be with our families forever, in a perfect state. We will have joy that we can only dream of now.

There is a great work going on. It is far greater than ourselves. We are stretching from eternity to eternity and we have the privilege to be a part of it. We have only small glimpses of where we came from, but I am sure we were great and it is up to us now to continue that greatness until we return to when we remember.

Alyssa jumped

On a trampoline at two different houses today. She was in heaven! It is her life long goal to jump and the most she can do right now is kind of hoppy skip.

I was impressed with her recollection skills tonight as I asked her about her trampoline experience. She told me that she jumped with a blue ball and a ball with a doggy on it. This was our first moment of her telling me what she did today.

We also tried a new vegetable stunt. I served everyone only broccoli before the main course. The result was Alyssa eating broccoli for dinner. It was fantastic! And thanks to a good friend's tactic of holding up your fingers and putting one down dramatically for each vegetable eaten, the broccoli was eaten with joy!

There are a lot of things I avoid in fear of tantrums. But I think I have learned today that with a little bit of creativity any obstacle can be overcome triumphantly!

Oh and I still like the twos. Just for the record.

An Ode to Two

Alyssa is two! That means a lot. It means two years have passed since she was born. Two years have passed since I graduate from college. Two years have passed sitting on the floor for at least an hour a day. It means that there is only 8 months left of graduate school life, if all goes as planned. It means that my 2 and a half years in Delaware is slowly coming to a close.

But back to Alyssa.

She is 2 feet, 10 inches tall. She weighs 29 pounds. She is highly active and doing more and more each day! We eat our lunches outside on occasion and go for walks around the complex on a daily basis. Spring weather is my new life saver with this rambunctious two year old. We are outside a lot and both of us find it quite refreshing.

For Alyssa's birthday we had a small cake surrounded by kiwis. Alyssa cut the cake for us and then ate all the kiwis. She preferred them over cake!

I really liked Alyssa as an infant. Who doesn't like an infant? They are so small and they smell so delicious. She was great as a one year old! She started walking and I thought life was just grand. But I have to say, despite the dreaded terrible twos, I am really really in love with Alyssa as a two year old. We have our moments. There are tantrums and time outs and crying on both our parts. I am not always the nicest mommy and Alyssa is not always the tamest child, but being two rocks!

Being two is bringing with it words and sentences. I am telling her things and she is repeating them back to me. My favorite morning in April was when I found her in the bathroom sink while Erik was cutting her hair. She was saying "O, crap! O, crap! Haircut!" Now, her selection of words, you may think was not the most clean and wholesome. But it was still pretty funny and cute. And it really hit me how much she is listening and understanding and trying to be like me. And that makes me want to be better...and cut a few words out of my vocabulary.

Being two means that she can request the primary song she wants me to sing. The last two times it has been the "temple" song. Mmmm this makes me happy because that happens to be my favorite primary song, too.

Being two means that she is playing and talking and laughing. We were on a walk yesterday and she was a little bit behind me with her baby. I could tell she was saying something so I started listing. "Hand in. Shake." "Hand in. Shake." Do you know what she was doing? The hokey pokey! So we did the hokey pokey the rest of the way home. Whenever we say elephant she puts her arm up to her noise and moves it like a trunk. She cooks pancakes with Daddy and now she has her own kitchen for her delightful enjoyment. We eat a lot of potato chips in her kitchen.

Being two means learning stories. We learned about Ammon and the sheep and that was a riot. And the great thing is when she finds Ammon sitting on the ground (I cut him out of the Friend) she picks him up and says "Ammon" and then attacks you...as if to cut off your arm.

When you think of having a baby, you might only think of the little squishy infant. And it seems exciting and challenging. But then they start to grow up and they become little people and even though the little people are even more challenging and might not seem quite as cute and squishy, they are definitely more fun. The minutes go faster and you grow together and have a blast!

I'm lovin' the twos in all their terrible glory!