Famous People Are on Coins

For the past week, Ali has been reminding us that Lincoln's birthday is coming up and that Washington's birthday will be after that. So, today we decided to press her a little more on these important holidays. Megan asked her who Lincoln was. Ali's reply was "I don't know; he's on the penny." Megan proceeded to tell her all about Lincoln, states' rights and the abolition of slavery. She then went into Washington--one of the Founding Fathers, who crossed the Delaware River for some reason. After listening to Megan's lecture, Ali summarized everything she got out of Megan's speech: "Famous people are on coins."

After we finished laughing, Ali asked if we could play The Game of Life (again). I consented. As we neared the end of the game and it was becoming clear that she was going to win (why do I always get the Accountant with a $20,000 salary!?), she explained to me that "It's not about winning. It's about having fun. But, it is exciting when you win."

Since we've been talking about Ali, here's an picture from this week, not related to anything we've been talking about.


The picture was from our ward activity yesterday which was a very well done "Clue" Party. It was a mystery about who took the cake and what the perpetrator used to eat it with (was it a spoon, a fork, fingers, or a spork?). That was the mystery for the adults to solve. And, wouldn't you know it, we figured out that they ate the cake in the gym with a fork--just like we all did at the end! The kids got to figure out a Blues Clues--which Ali and Kaitlyn loved. Yet, for some reason, the cake didn't make Kaitlyn as happy as it did the rest of us. Perhaps she was still full from the pizza and cupcakes she ate at the Darden Partners Association's Family Valentine's Day Party.


Kaitlyn has been happy, however, about taking ballet lessons. As you know, she loves to dress up every day. Combine that with dancing around to Disney tunes, and she's in heaven.


The other day I asked Ali what she liked about Kaitlyn; she answered that Kaitlyn played school with her. Later that day, they played school outside. The weather has been pretty nice these past couple of days. I took this picture from our bedroom window while I was supposed to be working on cases for the next day:

We found out this week that Max has a pretty good case of Cradle Cap. Although this condition apparently endows him with superior intellect later in life, at present it manifests itself through overactive oil glands which have led to chapped and sore cheeks (facial cheeks). Note the band aid on his left check and general redness.

Before the doctor made this diagnosis I thought it might have been something called Fifth's disease--but that was mostly because Ali's school sent home a note to parents indicating that someone in her class had it, and which has similar symptoms. This shouldn't be confused with Saks Fifth Avenue disease, which is what Megan has.

Megan had a great trip to Utah to visit family and friends. I especially enjoyed the video call we were able to have last Sunday so that I could prove that I was holding down the fort pretty well while she was gone. With significant travel in my future, we've pretty much confirmed that video calls are really going to help us manage. It is so much better than simply talking on the phone! If you haven't tried it, you really need to.

Finally, while Megan was in Utah she loved the bow that little Addilyn McIntyre was wearing. In order to remember how cute it was, she put it on one of our children and took a picture. I don't want this particular child to feel bad about having a bow on later in life, so I'll leave it to you to follow the clues!

Now, for the moment you've all been waiting for...212 days after this blog got started, Megan is going to post for the very first time! (But, please climb back into your seat before you read it.)

Megan's First (and Last) Post

I just want to give a huge THANK YOU to all those who made it possible to go on my rockin' Utah trip. Nathan is an amazing dad and husband; I'm so lucky that he was okay with sending me away for a week (I wonder if he wishes he could send me away more often). Really though--he's a rock star and I adore him. I had an absolute blast hanging out with my fabulous friends and family, eating yummy food (I heart Cafe Rio), and seeing all the cute new babies.


We so missed Lacey and Tyler, but I was lucky enough to hang with that gang a few weekends back. And, to hear all about that super fun trip and see great pictures of the kids, check out Lacey's blog.

I Need A New Finger

For the last several days, Kaitlyn has been complaining about her finger hurting. The weather has been cold and dry here, so I think her hands are cracked. It culminated this morning when she came in to me as I was getting ready and said, "I need a new finger."

Speaking of getting ready this morning, we had a good adventure before church today. First of all, let me give you a critical detail: Megan and Max left on Wednesday afternoon to visit friends in Utah, and won't be back until late Tuesday night; so, that just left Alison and Kaitlyn in charge of me for 6 (almost 7) days.

Now, let's return to this morning. We woke up at what I thought was a good and reasonable time, considering the fact that Ali, Kaitlyn and I stayed up to watch Ratatouille and eat popcorn last night. Well, it was a good and reasonable time for the girls. I opted to stay up a little later to blow off--or rather, postpone--my school work, in order to record the following untitled song. My head finally hit the pillow at about 12:30 a.m. But, hey, I thought I deserved it. I'd been taking care of the girls each afternoon, and then spending the 5+ hours after they went to bed at 7:00 p.m. to do the schoolwork that I would normally have done in the afternoon.

Back to this morning: Kaitlyn and Ali woke up spry, energized and hungry while I stumbled out of bed groggy-eyed, still dreaming of my guitar soloing the night before. (Did you download and listen to the song yet?) Now, if Megan were home, the girls would have had baths last night. She plans ahead. She remembers important things. (She even made arrangements before she even left for the Adens, Crofts, Nielsens, and Webbs to watch Kaitlyn during my scheduled class times--thank you all!)

As I finished attempting to do the girls' wet hair at 7:50 a.m., I wondered how I was ever going to shower myself and get us to church on time by 8:30 a.m. Somehow, we walked in during the opening hymn. However, I thought you might enjoy seeing how their hair turned out: (Forgive the lower resolution; Megan has the good camera.)



So, here I am, sitting at the computer wondering what I should do for dinner tonight. Since it's Sunday, I can't do Pizza Hut or Chick-Fil-A like the last couple of days. Fortunately, Megan left a pan of pre-made enchiladas with cooking instructions written on the aluminum in the freezer. I think I'm in luck!

Yesterday, as I was getting ready Ali came running in and asked, "Dad? Who do you want to win the Super Bowl, the Giants or the Patriots?" I looked at her and asked, "Are you serious?" She explained that they had been talking about it at school and that she had voted for the Giants and it was too late now to change her vote, even if she wanted to--which she didn't.

So, let's recap a few points:

1. Megan is an amazing mother and wife, and being as good as she is is a lot harder than it looks. It appears to take me 1.5x the time it takes her to do the same things.
2. I'm so lucky to have Ali and Kaitlyn (...and we've all missed Megan and Max). I have had an absolute blast spending dedicated time with the girls this week. We've gone to the park and mall playground, read books, done water painting, eaten lunch with Ali at her school, had a "game day" and a movie and popcorn night, and had fast food for dinner. It has been so much fun, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Megan Jr.

Alison is Megan Jr. She loves to make crafts and do scrapbooking. Yesterday morning, after we had our traditional Saturday morning Tweety-bird waffles for breakfast, Ali pulled a chair up to Megan's scrapbooking table and got out a piece of a paper with her handwritten notes on it. The paper had headings indicating colors, and underneath each one were the names of various of her kindergarten classmates. Apparently, she had asked each one of them what color valentine envelope they would like, and was working on personalized recipticles for each person.

She explained that she would make the envelope for each one of them (complete with name), but that they would have to further decorate it themselves.

Bringing You Up-to-Date

First of all, I'd like to extend my apologies to our regular weekly reader(s) about missing last week. We were up having a great time visiting our friends the Selden's in Delaware, so we took the week off.

I feel a little bad since the last several posts have focused on Alison and Kaitlyn, and Max hasn't gotten much air time. However, in my defense, he's kind of at an age where he doesn't do too much, other than smile, eat, sleep, get mauled by his sisters, etc. and that doesn't change drastically from week to week.

This week, though, is different. I've determined that Max is very advanced for his age. You could say he's gifted. Although he'll be 4 months old in a couple of days, he's already blowing out of diapers at at least a 6-to-7 month old level. What's more he's drooling like a 4th grader who just got both sides of his mouth numbed at the dentist--and Max doesn't even have any teeth yet. Gifted.

He also looks quite handsome in his first (clip-on) tie:


Alison is really coming into her own. This afternoon for some "just me and Mom" time, Alison and Megan worked on a sudoku together. Ali loved spending time with Megan doing something that Megan loves to do. Well, later in the day Ali and Kaitlyn were chasing each other around the house while I made dinner (another Sunday tradition) while Max was in the swing. Every 3 laps, or so, I would ask one of them to give Max a push in his swing (we really should go buy some new batteries for that thing!). Soon I noticed that the chasing had stopped. I stopped stirring my chicken and rice, and went to check on the kids.

I found Ali, laying in front of the swing, pushing Max with her foot while working on a sudoku all by herself!


It's clear that Alison loves to learn. On Saturday--her day off of school--she made Kaitlyn and I sit in front of her art easel so that she could play teacher.

She even gave me homework (which I had to finish before Friday):

I'm happy to report that I got my homework done early and earned a "Gecko Buck" (a.k.a. "gold star") from Ms. Call; I drew a picture of our family and I guess the "teacher" liked it.

However, Ali's scholastic enthusiasm does have its downside. We find drawing and writings all over any and all papers that we've left out around the house. Ali found an envelope full of receipts we were keeping for tax purposes and took a Sharpie to it. She also took the liberty of inscribing the blame in permanent ink:

Before our Delaware trip, we got about 3-inches of snow in 4 hours. Ali's school was cancelled on both Thursday and Friday, and she immediately wanted to come home and make a snowman. Sadly, Mr. Snowman melted most of the way before the end of the day.

Kaitlyn is a perpetual smiling machine. Today at church one of the Primary teachers asked, "Does she ever stop smiling?" The answer is "no." Even when she cries, you can see a hidden smile. She is also quite funny.

This week during one of her dinner prayers she said, "Please beless us that we can eat our dinner safely." I thought dinner was great that night!

Another time she was riding her scooter around and purposefully stopped right in front of the fridge. I must have looked at her with a puzzled look on my face because she said, "Oh man, there's too much traffic!"

Another night we were doing our family scripture study. We were reading 2 Ne. 15:17 which starts, "Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places..." Suddenly, Kaitlyn interrupted us and announced loudly, "Hey! Just like I waste my food at dinner!" I'm glad that she's already "likening the scriptures to herself", sort of.

During My One Week Course

This week officially started my second-to-last quarter of b-school. Since I only took 4 courses (as opposed to 5) last quarter, I decided to take a one-week course before Q3 started. It's a little intense trying to cram a whole quarter's worth of learning into a single week, but somehow I survived. What's more, the class--The Consulting Process--was actually valuable given my new chosen profession. This "real" quarter isn't going to be much less intense, however. My classes include:

• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Small-Enterprise Finance
• Financial Statement Analysis and Corporate Valuation
• Intro to Real Estate Finance and Development
• General Managers Taking Action

In short, the next 9 weeks are going to be busy, but fun.

While I was worrying about school this week, here are some of the other things that were going on at home.

Let's start with Max. His neck is really getting strong and he does well sitting in the Exer-Saucer, swing, or doing "tummy time." He is improving his coo-ing skills. He's getting better at responding back when you "talk" to him. One of the most adorable exchanges of his life so far occurred Friday night when Megan and he went back and forth for about 5-7 minutes. Megan would make a sound and Max would immediately try to imitate it--even to sticking out his tongue. Further, he's figured out the thumb-sucking thing pretty well by now.

Continuing with the music brainwashing, his shirt says, "I'm with the band " (thanks to Jen for the cute onesie!).

Last week, I may have given the impression that Kaitlyn is becoming quite a handful. So this week, rather than relate the details of her 4 "accidents " where she didn't make it to the bathroom on time, or her writing on Megan's Stampin' Up cards that Megan had made, or her finding and consuming Alison's candy, I thought I'd focus on how adorable Kaitlyn is and why we're so glad she's in our family.

Kaitlyn loves dresses. She loves skirts. She loves anything "girly" (except getting her hair done). On Thursday night Kaitlyn was playing at the top of the stairs and yelled down to me, "Dad! I'm a princess, and I need you to dance with me on the stairs in my palace!"

At other random moments, she's blurted out, "Dad, I'm a princess" to inform me, in case I wasn't already aware. She also walks around taking bows and doing curtsies (as you can somewhat see below).

She's also continued to develop her mad photography skills. Behold this shot of Max, taken at a distance of about 4 inches from his face. I like the way the eyes stand out.

However, one story about Kaitlyn's mischief bears some telling. (Besides, it's partly about Megan too!) We bought a case of juice boxes to put in Ali's school lunches. When we're not looking Kaitlyn will get into it. When Megan catches her, she'll say, "I was getting this one out for Dad for later." Well, Megan had about enough of Kaitlyn getting into the case, so she told me she was going to do something about it. It was time to take some security precautions. This is what she came up with--

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I think I'll just take the case and try to find some room on the fridge for it.

The highlight of Megan's week was buying a new soft and fuzzy robe at Old Navy at the bargain price of $8.00. When she's relaxing before bed, it looks like she's just back from the day spa. However, when I asked about getting a picture for the blog she said, "Are you kidding? The robe adds 10-pounds, the camera adds 10-pounds, and all of a sudden I'm a contestant on The Biggest Loser!"

She also started training this week for a mini-marathon she plans on running on April 19th, and so far, she's totally rocking it. (See how supportive I am.)

Alison continues to amaze me with her learning. We bought her some dry erase markers for her white board, and each day since then she's made her schedule, or checklist, for the day.

She writes the date at the top and then draws a box next to each line item so she can place a checkmark in each one when she completes it. In case you can't read words in the picture above, her list says:

• Go to school.
• Trets (treats) box.
• Go houm (home).
• Do what I'm doing rite (right) now.
• ?
• ?
• TV
• Dinre (Dinner)
• Game night
• Sleep

Aah...the complicated life of a 5-year old.

She's also been looking forward to the 100th day of school. On Friday when I picked her up from the bus stop, she told me that she was excited about the 100th day of school coming up. I asked her what day of school it was and she replied that it was the 89th day of school. I asked her how many more days it would be until the 100th day. She paused. Then the answered with confidence: Eleven! Wow.

She does love numbers. And sports. This week while she was playing pretend basketball in the hall, she yelled to me, with excitement, "Dad! (while still bouncing the ball) I have 366 points. Help me remember that!"

So, here it goes: Ali, you have 366 points.

Weekend Update

Kaitlyn is so mischevious yet so adorable at the same time. For some reason, she likes to get right in Max's face and yell "Boo!" when he's sleeping. (She's also taken up walking around the house yelling "Ariel!" in random moments at the top of her lungs doing her best Little Mermaid King Triton impersonation). A couple of days ago, after I expressly asked her to leave Max alone, I caught her red-handed trying to bother him in his crib. I cannot explain, however, why she is wearing a swimsuit around the house in the middle of freezing cold January. I get a strange feeling that this may just be the start of many disagreements regarding her wardrobe.

Of course, yesterday she was in "adorable" mode. She carefully set out the pink plastic plates, cups and utinsels and put animal crackers at each setting. She then found Megan and I and announced proudly, "The tea party is ready!"

Megan especially enjoyed it. She has also enjoyed spending time this week working on scrapbooking my 2008 calendar since I didn't have class. The calendar is one of my treasured possessions each year; it tells me all of the important dates that I need to worry about--birthdays, holidays, and the number of months we've been married.

One of our new favorite pastimes is trying to get Max to smile and/or laugh. His little smile and accompanying uncontrolled, enthusiastic full-body movements are enough to brighten our mood no matter what is going on.

We're also excited because Max's neck is now strong enough to be able to sit in the Exer-Saucer. He doesn't really reach for any of the toys or understand what they are for, but he seems to enjoy all of the colors that surround him; it's fun and/or great to watch him turn just his head around from side to side as he carefully observes each object.

Alison has continued to enjoy playing the board games that she got for Christmas. I think we've played more Game of Life this week than I've played in my entire life up to this point. I do love, however, that she now knows how to make change for $100,000. She's also developing a keen interest in becoming a banker, since they have all of the money.

Yesterday, she had a friend from kindergarten named Joseph over. They wanted to play Disney Monopoly Jr. "They were a team and I lost." (Last sentence voiced by Ali on my behalf.) Additionally, Ali just sang the following correction in my ear after reading along: "Disney Monopoly Jr. is wrong. It's called 'Monopoly Jr. Disney Edition!"