Welcome Back, Rob!

I'm actually a couple of days early with this post, but I'm so excited, I just couldn't wait. Rob officially begins his research year NEXT WEDNESDAY!!! Research=normal life. To illustrate: we went to an end-of-year dinner a few weeks ago and sat at a table with the residents who are just finishing their research year. One couple was tan/burned. I asked if they had been on vacation and they all started LAUGHING at me. They said, "No, this is called HAVING A LIFE-- you'll get used to it. We've been doing yardwork." What??? There are people who see daylight when they're not on vacation????

Another anecdote: A few weeks ago, on a Wednesday, Rob was saying that it had been a pretty good week so far. I agreed. He started adding up his hours, and figured he had worked about 40 hours so far. We were like, Wow, that's great. Then we said to ourselves, 40 hours by Wednesday is great? What strange standards.

I just have to say that Rob is amazing. He has dealt with so much in these first few years of residency. It is especially amazing how he maintains his standards being surrounded so constantly by, well, other stuff. He has worked SOOOO hard, met the goals he has set for himself and overcome large obstacles. There have been some rough times, I will not lie. Times I was sure he was going to switch careers and all of this was going to have been for nothing. There have been nights I have found him out in the garage, asleep in the car. There have been sentences I have not finished because he fell asleep in the middle of them.....

I am so proud of my dear Rob, and so excited to have him around for dinner again soon :) oh, wait, does that mean we can't have frozen ravioli once a week?

I Heart Peonies

And on a side note, Rob and I have started "body for life" because we're going to Lake Powell later this summer. No "before" pictures will be posted. You're welcome.

Sam

Sam has teeth! And he gets SO excited about these drums.

Shoeless Viv

*Last night I couldn't get this pic off my phone.... but I feel like it really adds something to the story :) And yes, I really did want to remind her where she was working. But then again, I was shopping there....

The day after I posted that last post we went to Dollar Tree. Viv lost a shoe in the car, and it was POURING rain so I didn't feel like leaving her and Sam in the cart in the parking lot for 5 minutes while I looked for it. We just ran into the store. As we were checking out, the lady says to Viv, "Where's your other shoe? Are you a hillbilly?"

Oh brother.

To be fair, sometimes I really don't know that she's lost a shoe, and then I appreciate it.

This is what most days look like

Grace: "hey Mom, remember coloring Sam?"

Me: "ummm, not really...."

And then Grace proceeds to empty a few drops of Sam's formula from the bottle into a spoon and "color" Sam's face and head with it.

Also notice how Vivian has all her snaps undone. I cannot keep anything snapped, zipped or velcroed onto that girl these days. I might start shopping at the ghetto Walmart here again, because when we went there the other day, not ONE SINGLE person said to me "Did you know she only has one shoe on?" And I didn't have to say, "Yes, I know, I left it off because I'm so sick of putting her shoes on."

And this is the conversation I have 30 times a day:

Viv: Mom!
Me: What?
Viv: Mom!
Me: What?
Viv: Mom!
Me: What?
Viv: Mom!
Me: What?
Viv: Mom!
Me: What?
Viv: Mom!
Me: What?

I love my kids. That sounds like sarcasm, but it's not :)

Easter, etc.

We had a nice Easter. I put up a bunch of pictures with explanations on Flickr, so I won't repeat all that here. Just wanted to let y'all know. Also, we started what I think is a great tradition: filet mignon for Easter dinner. Ham shmam.

Conference

I always love Conference weekend. This conference seemed like it was a good one, but it was a little hard to tell. We sat down to eat some homemade sweet rolls as the morning session started, thinking that would keep things a little calm so that we could hear. Wrong. Here is a a condensed transcript of what it sounded like at our house.

Grace: We are listening to the prophet! FOLLOW THE PROPHET, FOLLOW THE PROPHET..... (I won't write out the whole song for you...) Adam was a prophet, first one that we know! Hey, Adam was a prophet. And we know about him! Did you know about the dog prophet? It is big, all the way up to the ceiling!

Me: SSssssshhhhh....

Vivian: (holding her finger to her lips) ssssssssshhhhhh (big smile) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Vivian banging her sippy cup on the table BANG BANG BANG

I take away the cup

Vivian banging her fork on the table BANG BANG BANG

I take away the fork

Grace: Who is this?

Rob: It's Elder Anderson, he's an apostle

Grace: Did you know there is a DOGpostle? ....

Vivian: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Me: Sssssshhhh

Vivian: ssssssshhh.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Anyway, this all went on for a good 30-40 minutes.

I'm grateful for reprints of Conference :)