The Haggard Herald

Madeleine pretty much never falls asleep during the afternoons anymore.  However, she's had a hard time being happy and finding things to do.  We were both having a hard time.  She and I were both often grumpy and unhappy with ourselves and each other.  I prayed for help to know how to help her deal with the afternoons.  I really value peace at home and a mutual love between us. It was really emotionally hard when she was getting mad at me for the littlest, silliest things day after day.  I knew she was tired, but I didn't know how to help her deal with it.  I'm glad to say we've come up with several solutions.  One clear impression I had was to teach her.  I decided we were going to have a special Mommy and Maddie school.  We made a poster board with our agenda and she loves following it step by step.   I made up a welcome to school song.  If you're curious, it goes like this:  Welcome to our school Welco...

Recipes aren't my typical post topic, but I think I've finally got a recipe for french chicken that comes close to Molly's!  I'm happy.  The girls are happy.  Matt is happy.  We are all happy to have "Molly's" french chicken at home and not just when we are lucky enough to go out to eat.  Here you go: ingredients: 2 TPSP butter 1 tsp salt 2 chicken breasts, cut into halves or thirds (or fourths if they are huge) 1/2 onion, halved and then sliced a bunch of big carrots, maybe 3/4-1 lb, peeled and cut into 3-4 inch pieces (I know it sounds like a lot but you're going to wish you had more of them when it's done) 4 cups chicken broth 4 TBSP white cooking wine 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper 1 cup cream extra 1/2 cup water 1 TBSP corn starch how-to: melt butter with salt in a medium-large size pan (a pot could work too if you don't have a pan with sides that will hold all the liquid) add chicken over medium heat, lightly browning the...

Earlier this spring we took the girls to hike Battle Creek Falls.  It's in the mountain east of Lindon/Pleasant Grove and it about a half mile up to the waterfall.  It's a pretty steady up-hill climb the whole way but the girls did pretty well.  We took lots of breaks.  Lucy looked at bugs.  They both loved trying to convince me that they needed rocks.  I remember wanting to collect rocks when I was a kid.  But I also remember being particular about which ones I wanted.  They don't seem to care very much; any old rock will do.  And all the rocks will do, too. Maddie used to want to just sit at the trailhead in a pile of rocks and gravel when we used to take her to hike.  She will hike now but Lucy wants to sit and play with rocks.  Fortunately, we can get Lucy up the trail better since there's a dad and big sister to chase up the trail.  But she still would rather sit and play in the rocks. There is a cool little c...

Here are a few more pictures from Matt of our day at the zoo last week. Did you notice the fabric on my shirt?  And Lucy's?  We've got our jungle animals shirts on.  Maddie chose her new sand dollar shirt I made for her instead of one of the Serengeti fabrics.  I love making shirts, by the way.  Thank you Melory, for showing me how! Maddie was really excited to ride the train.  It was a short, fun addition to our zoo visit. Danny and Alisa did a great job piling three little boys on top of each other trying to get a cool picture with the elephant statue. Our monkeys, minus Lu.  I love pictures with her cousins because it makes Maddie look small again.  She's taller than average, and she's talked so well for so long, that sometimes I forget she's still only three.  Oh, I love my little three-year-old Maddie Jo.  I was telling Matt last night, sometimes when I look at one of the girls and think about how much I love each of...

So, life has been busy the past few weeks.  We are in the market for a new car which has taken up a lot of time both researching online and going to look at different cars.  I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for and I'm hoping that we will have it in our garage in another couple of weeks.  I found a dealer that I felt good about and told him what I wanted (2012 Oddessy, clean title, less than 50K miles and our price) and he said he would find it for me.  He did, and it should be delivered in about a week to his dealership. So anyways--the rest of our time has been filled with all sorts of things.  Baby chicks (I'll post about them later), Easter egg hunts at home, at Grandma's, and with my old roommates, Lucy finding lions both outside the zoo and inside, play dates, park trips, playing in our own yard every day (hooray!), sewing, making a new fort, ice skating, and other things. The weather has been great lately which really helps. Maddie ...

I had chicken marinated.  It was going to be grilled.  But our evening plans changed.  And the next evening Matt and I were going out to dinner.  The next day I decided it was time for grilling.  But Matt didn't come home for lunch that day.  So I did it.  It was a little nerve racking.  I was worried about a big plume of fire igniting us all and the house on fire.  After making the girls watch me start the grill from the safety of inside I even got brave enough to hold Lucy while I turned the chicken over.  And I asked Maddie to take a picture (she took 13) of it so that I could remember the day I learned how to use the grill by myself. Side story: The girls and I had been playing out back most of the morning.  They were helping me wash our Florida shells (they had been sitting in zipped up bags and were still stinky).  Poor Lucy kept getting wet though.  After the third change of clothes she demanded "any! any!"...

Maddie and Lucy often have a great time together.  And when they are fighting, they still would way rather have each other than not.  When one is gone the other is lost.  These two complete each other and fulfill each other's needs--they have each other to play with and drive nuts and hug and tug and love and say sorry to and forgive--every day.  It is beautiful. Maddie's often the first one into Lucy's room when she starts to wake up in the morning and in the afternoons after naps. This morning Maddie ran in before me and then asked if Lucy could sit on her lap.  So she did.  And Maddie read her several books. Maddie decided it would be easier to read if Lucy was next to her instead of on top of her, so they moved to this position.  They stayed like this for a while, just looking at books together with Maddie reading, or singing, or pointing out all the different parts of each page and accompanying pictures. I'm so glad they have each other....

An app on Matt's phone makes these short videos of pictures and video he takes.  This one is for the month of February.  It includes puppet shows, Matt practicing the ukulele (he was trying to inspire Nate to learn to play it too), reading, playing at home, playing with Valentines at Grandma's house, camping in the great room, and early morning cuteness. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/OEH0GXAaIR8 (It won't upload, I think because of Matt's youtube preferences, but the link should work.)

Someday I will do a blog post (or a few) about all the work Matt and I and our good neighbors did this past summer.  But the bottom line is that we have a mostly fenced-in back yard that is very kid-friendly (no more pokey bushes and shaggy ground cover with all sorts of creatures that I, as a mom, would rather not have in my back yard).  We all LOVE having a back yard!  This morning the girls and I ate muffins outback.  And there have even been a few afternoons lately when the sun has warmed up the back patio enough that we can go barefoot out there for a while. So yes, we got to eat muffins outback this morning.  Then we came in and got warmer clothes on, because it still is pretty chilly... and back outside we went.  We walked over to our neighbor's house, the ones that own the big fields with the sheep in them, to see if the baby lambs had been born yet.  And it was just our luck that there were two baby lambs born this morning!  Kaye took u...

For Christmas Matt gave me a note pad (I love making lists, as he mentioned to me when I opened it) and a planner (which I had asked for).  I opened the planner up and he had filled in on the monthly views a date a week and a day each month for us, or at least me, to go to the temple.  This has been one of my favorite gifts I've ever been given.  We've gone rock climbing, snow shoeing, out for dessert, to a Utah Symphony concert at BYU, watched the sunset at the beach, and read children's books together.  We used to do that a lot when we were dating because I was in a children's literature class at BYU my last semester and I had to read a ton of books for it.  He's taken more pictures than me, but here are a few from snow shoeing last week for our date.  We went up to Big Springs, where we took the girls for President's Day. ************************************************** Now for an update on the girls: It's been very spring like around here l...

I was thinking over the weekend that blogging is a really good way for my family to know what we're up to and see us, even if it's only in pictures.  So I'm rededicating my efforts to blog regularly again.  Hopefully it helps at least somewhat in that regard. Matt had the day off of work yesterday and so we went snowshoeing up around Big Springs, in Provo Canyon.  It was a pretty warm day for February (upper 40's).  The weather has actually been warm for almost a week and I feel like spring is trying to say it's almost time.  The water is starting to run and the streams are getting full.  There was still plenty of snow to hike in though. Turned out that our trail was already really packed down.  Lucy only stepped into deep snow twice (seems like they don't make snowshoes for 18 month olds).  There were a lot of other people out along the trail in regular shoes.  Matt and I took turns carrying her or holding her hand.  She also love...