Life

Here are a few recent pictures.
We are almost done with the house. Just two more weeks. Thank goodness. I am sick of trying to pick paint colors. I need to just decide and be done with it. But it is so hard when those tiny paint strips are so different from a room painted in the color.
The girls are as cute as ever. Sometimes I feel inadequate to be a mother. I get so impatient by the end of the day, and by the end of the week I am toast. I hate that I am not better than I am and that is sometimes a self fulfilling prophesy I bet. The girls are so much fun, especially one-on-one. They are different in many ways and I really enjoy seeing them be themselves fully when alone.
Julia is getting bigger, well, mostly longer. She's longer and lighter than the older girls were at 4 months. She's learning how to be a cat. The other day she started crying, vocalizing differently. It was funny watching her do it because I could see her trying to hit a high pitch than normal. I even got it on film. I'll post that later.
Joe had a fun day of fishing last week. He and a friend went kayaking in the delta from 530 am to 5 pm. He came home looking like a lobster in spots. Oops. They each caught 13 fish, but being the delta they didn't keep any to eat. Joe had a good experience with prayer. One of his poles feel in the water and sunk. But after praying and searching for about 15 minutes he was able to find it in about 7 feet of water. Sometimes we do find what we have lost.
Hopefully I'll find my brain soon...
A fun note. We were able to upgrade our camera this month. My old one fell out of the diaper bag. After that it was never the same, it couldn't focus half the time I tried to use it so we purchased a new one. Half the price and twice the megapixels. I love technology advances. :) The picture of Julia on the reddish couch is with the old camera, and the other ones are with the new one. Can you tell?

Put a fork in me

I am so done. So very done with living in this townhouse-apartment-summer house whatever you want to call it. Thankfully our house is in the home stretch. I told Joe I have three weeks left in me, if that. At that point I need to be out of this place. He called me yesterday and asked about how long until we anticipate being ready to move out. He mentioned six weeks, I cried. There just isn't enough rooms where I can put our three girls for naps, especially Julia. Three days in a row that I have tried for more than two hours to get her to sleep in the morning and haven't succeded until I was able to get the older girls down for the their noon naps. By that time the baby is screaming, the girls are wild, and I am near tears if not in tears.
Cassidy is up... i'll finish later

It's later and all the kids are in bed, whether asleep or not, we shall see.

This afternoon I had to get out of this place. I got the kids in the car and just drove away. I ended up taking us by our "big house"... and there is julia crying. shoot me now please. Just put me out of my misery.

ja dura

Today we received a card in the mail from my mission president('s wife). I had the best mission president and wife. My original mission call was to Portugal Lisbon South, which included the Cape Verde islands. Before I entered the MTC it was announced that the islands would be separated and become its own mission. While in the MTC the mission president for the Cape Verde mission was named, Daryl Hobson. I remember joking with my companions about how close his name was to my father's Darryll Dodson and how it would be funny if he were to be my president. But we all thought there would be no way that we'd get called to Cape Verde. Yet a few days before leaving we found out that two of the three of us would be going to Cape Verde. From the first time I met President and Sister Hobson I knew that they were special. They were, they are. I always enjoyed the opportunities I had to talk to them and get to know them. I especially felt a connection with Sister Hobson. She was like a mother to me while I was there. My mother had died 6 months before I left on my mission so I really needed someone and Sister Hobson was amazing. I will always be grateful for them.
I stopped by our house today. It was kind of deflating. It's a disaster. Hand prints all over the walls. Dirt. Holes. Water. And what is up with the weather? More rain today. The house had to be tarped. Please no more rain. But it is progressing. Two steps forward and one step back.
The older girls are asleep right now and Julia is here on the couch with me. She's smiling and cooing and kicking the laptop. I love this age; it is so adorable. She just looks like she's trying to talk to me. She is so beautiful and such a doll. Cassidy never took to a pacifier or sucked her thumb, Molly only started sucking her thumb at about 9 months and still does but never took a pacifier, Julia is already jawing her fingers all the time. So interesting how they each found their own thing, in their own time.

Too many brushstrokes

Ever seen Amadeus? Too many notes is the original quote. My mother-in-law is an artist and so we sometimes use 'too many brushstrokes' to mean that she's overworked a painting. The funny thing is I typed 'brushstrokes' up above thinking that was the original wording, it wasn't until I mentioned Amadeus that it hit me that he didn't use brushstrokes. Oh the mommy-isms.
What a wonderful day. Beautiful weather. The baby got a good 3-hour morning nap, all the girls are asleep, Joe is out buying ice cream and renting a movie. Oh yeah.
We spent an hour or so this afternoon looking at bath fixtures. We need shower valves for the two bathrooms being done for Monday. This is the 'too many brushstrokes' connection. Too many choices. The girls lost it before we could buy anything. Good thing too because after getting the girls down I went online and found our favorites for loads cheaper. Gotta love Amazon. And with Prime there was no shipping fee to get two day delivery. AWESOME!!! Stinky thing is that the valves aren't included with the fixtures so we still have to buy those, and those can't be here until Tuesday, at least. Unless we can find a local store that carries them. Oh well. What can you do? My brain is still fried from the store shopping and the amazon/internet price finding mission. Next, fans... joy. We already hired a babysitter this week to get and look. Now we need to buy. Too many choices. Not so fun anymore.

Junuary

So what is up with the weather?? It rained during the first few days of June and now it's in the 90s. Craziness.

What is happening with us. I am getting more accustomed to a small condo. Julia still is the victim of too few rooms but is being nice and giving me sporadic nights where she sleeps all night. I actually got two in a row this weekend. Very nice indeed. Molly is a little spitfire. She loves to climb on the kitchen table and look at herself in the mirror we have hanging on the dining room wall. She still isn't saying a whole lot but she loves to jabber more and more. She does know the word 'more' and is good at using it when she wants more food. Molly loves the pool and had been walking right off the edge up until this last weekend. My mother-in-law bought the girls flotation vests and for some reason Molly has mellowed out since she's been using hers. Its wonderful. Cassidy used to hang out on the steps in the pool but now that she has her vest she will actually let go of us and kick herself around the pool. It's amazing how fast she changed. Those vests were a great purchase. Thank goodness for pools and air conditioning.

Our house is coming along. The upstairs framing is done. The roof tresses are up. The plywood is up along the roof and second story. Joe said the guys were prepping for the drywall inside the upstairs today. This week the roof and foundation get done. It actually looks like a real house now.



Molly goes to nursery officially this Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She so needs it. I've been in there with her the last couple of weeks. That was so much easier than staying in the halls with her running around. She'll do just fine there I am sure. There are 13 kids in nursery I believe, lots of buddies to play with, including Cassidy.

What else? I can't wait to move back home. I miss having my own yard, and a room for each girl, and just space, and our neighbors.








A little explanation about this one. I had fed Molly half of a yogurt and then gave her the remaining yogurt to feed herself. She started out eating it with a spoon, then started using her hand to eat it, then she decided to put it in her hair. I let her go at it for a few minutes before I took her for an impromptu bath. Banana yogurt stinks... yuck.