Another one?!?!

Hey folks!

Walton Baby #4 is due on September 9th, 2016. We are starting to blog about this new little addition over at:

http://waltonbabies-episodeiv.blogspot.com/ (Our family are kind of Star Wars geeks, if you haven't noticed by now).

Check it out!

Tacos and My Love

When Steve and I were first married, he did all the cooking. He love being in the kitchen, and is totally comfortable making up his own recipes--usually measuring seasonings and ingredients by feel (a handful of this, "more than you would think" of that) rather than by standard teaspoons and tablespoons.

Back in the days of newlywedhood, he sometimes made me these really delicious tacos for dinner. I liked them so much that my co-workers even teased me about how much I talked about them. But what can I say? Great tacos = love.

Now that the kids are older and gaining appreciation for the finer things (i.e. they will actually try new foods) we've all become really attached to eating Steve's tacos on Taco Tuesday. As soon as Sunday is over they start asking if it's Taco Tuesday yet. :)

The typical spread includes fried corn tortilla taco shells, diced tomatoes, sour cream, queso fresco, and a super yummy lime doused mix of cilantro and onion, with chili-lime chicken as the shining star. Steve likes his with some salsa verde, and Charlie has been known to sample that as well. :)

Everybody loves Taco Tuesday. When the hubs is working and not home to chef for us on a Tuesday, there is much sadness and regret among the littles, and we always promise to reschedule to Taco Wednesday or Thursday.

Everybody eats tacos their own way. Juliette usually likes hers in pieces, and vegetarian. She likes queso fresco, tomatoes, and usually downs a couple of shells (sometimes with some sour cream on them). We put chicken on her plate, buuuut she doesn't eat it. She is a big proponent of tacos and always shouts, "TACOS! TACOS!" a la President Business in The Lego Movie.

Charlie is our biggest taco eater, often rivaling Steve in number consumed. I usually eat 2-3, Charlie typically downs 3-5. He likes his with sour cream, tomatoes, queso fresco, and chicken.

Gracie-girl is not a fan of taco shells, so she eats her tacos "deconstructed": all the fillings on her plate. She's also been keeping tabs on our taco consumption on a piece of paper she keeps stuck to the fridge. :)

Steve's sister Emily has a beautiful foodie blog, where she took Steve's little-of-this-lots-of-that recipe and quantified it into actual measurements, so if you're looking for a fab taco recipe, you can find the official Walton Taco Tuesday taco recipe there. ;)

The First Day of Christmas

We LOVE Christmas. So much. All November we wait for Thanksgiving to happen, knowing that as soon as we get up the following morning, the celebration/decoration can begin.

At Thanksgiving dinner we talked with Gracie and Charlie about what we were planning for the next day--to get out all the Christmas decorations, put up the tree, and decorate the house. Steve had worked all day on Thanksgiving (while I cooked and the littles played), so the house pretty naturally got thrashed. :) So as we explained our plans, Steve told them that before we could decorate, we'd have to clean up the house.

The next morning Gracie came into our room and told us not to come downstairs until she came back to get us. When she did, she and Charlie had picked up all the toys and messes on the floor, cleared the piano of clutter, and even put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher!

We got up to a house totally ready to decorate, and it was just the sweetest thing. They both had the hugest smiles when they showed us around. :)

Standing in the results of their hard work--a spotless family room!

They were so excited to get started that they couldn't even wait for breakfast. Steve obligingly got out one of our giant Christmas tupperware bins (for there are many) and the kids began unloading and exploring.

Stockings, nativities, fake Christmas trees, a Little People Santa set, and many other treasures were unearthed while Steve whipped up a gorgeous sugar-laden breakfast feast.

While he was at ACEP (his first emergency medicine conference) in Boston this fall, he had breakfast a bunch of times at a super-tasty restaurant. One of his favorite meals inspired him to make us that morning's fantastic raspberry-butterscotch pancakes. Steve put chocolate chips in mine, too. ;)

I am always amazed at how much these munchkins of ours can eat!

Filled with sugar of all kinds, we set up the tree and began unloading the ornament boxes.

And, as is tradition, when Steve tested the tree lights we discovered that a few strings didn't work! So we made our now annual unintentional-Black-Friday-trip-to-a-hardware-store to replace our lights.

Juliette had some very particular opinions about what qualified as appropriate attire to wear to Lowes.

Can you find her?

Armed with way more lights than we technically needed (and a remote control for the outside lights!), we went back home to string them on the tree.

And then the rest of the decorating could begin!

Oh yes. And while we were at Lowes, the older kids tried on--and then broke--these 3D Christmas classes. They turn all the Christmas tree lights into reindeer or Santas when you look into them. They're actually pretty cool, but I wasn't super pumped that we were forced into buying them. #disposableincomesayswhat

But happily, the kids adored them and wore them around for several days with lots of Ooohing and Aaaahing and much general rejoicing. So my Scroogeness about having to by broken cardboard glasses was overcome by their genuine pleasure in wearing them.

Also, the goofballness helps. :)

We hung every ornament and discussed all their origins. (One of my personal favorites is one of Steve's from age 14: it's a hand-painted wooden heart that says, in Sharpie, "Naughty: 1998" on one side and "Nice: NEVER" on the other. He wrote in the inscriptions himself, obvs. My little punk.)

And then finally Steve climbed up on a chair and lifted Gracie up to place the star we bought as newlyweds at an after-Christmas sale at the Crate and Barrel near our San Diego apartment.

That afternoon after the kids had quiet time, we all went out in the front yard and hung lights on the house. Gracie was in charge of keeping the high-up strands from running along the ground while Steve hung them. (Everyone was alight with excitement when he climbed out of a second-story window to hang some from the roof.) I strung white lights in the bushes, Steve put up the Moravian star, and Juliette walked in circles from the driveway to the porch and back down again.

And then we waited for the dark to fall so we could admire our handiwork.

And everybody's heart felt filled with Christmas cheer.

The End. ;)

Laundry

Sometimes I get so caught up in recording the EVENTS that I forget to record the everyday stuff. In the end, that is what is really important to me. Those are the things that fill my heart, recharge me on a daily basis so that I have the energy to keep going. Raising my babies is taking a very lot of energy. :) And I don't want to forget the simple things, the moments of our life that are, as Neal A. Maxwell puts it, "the molecules that make up eternity."

Laundry is a constant.

There is always, always, always laundry.

Big socks and little socks, and socks in between (those in-between ones are mine, and Steve claims he can't tell them apart from the kids' socks. Hmmph.). Everybody's underwear, and t-shirts long-sleeved and short (a high proportion of which are Star Wars specific). Jeans, skirts, leggings--both fleece-lined and regular--gym clothes and yoga pants. And pair upon pair of pajamas: zippered, footed, and 2-piece.

Whatever else may be swept, wiped, mopped, decluttered, tidied, or cleaned--there is always laundry.

It's not my nemesis, per say. Its definitely a battle. I do a load every weekday to keep on top of it:

Kids clothes Monday
Dark clothes Tuesday
Light clothes Wednesday
Catch up (sheets, bath towels, and clothes, rags, and dish towels from the downstairs hamper) on Thursday and Friday.

It's part of my morning routine. Wake up, scriptures, prayer, maybe a tiny bit of yoga (stretches for my neck and shoulders), get dressed, fix my hair and put on my face, make the bed, wipe down the master bath, and throw a load of laundry in the washer.

Later in the day I move it to the dryer.

By afternoon its ready to fold, but usually I don't fold it. I haven't figured out where that fits into my life yet. It's not a priority, you know? And the kids are accustomed to checking the dryer or the clean-baskets in the laundry room if they can't find something they need in their dressers.

But Tuesday afternoons I always fold, because that's the kids' folding day, too.

When I decided that I needed to drastically simplify in 2014, one of the changes I made was to be proactive about teaching the kids to help around the house, and enlisting them for regular household "contributions" like picking up their rooms, folding laundry, and sweeping the floors.

I have to give them a huge amount of credit for their [mostly] good attitudes about this. I think starting them young has helped with that a lot, but there are other things I do that help, too. I try to acknowledge that it's not fun, and that maybe I don't want to do it either--but that we do it to help our home stay clean and cozy. That resonates with them, and I am so grateful!

I've also learned to be patient.

They go at their own pace. It is slower than mine, but they are happy, and the work gets done.

They fold in their own way. It is different than mine (even though I taught them!) but they do good work.

Afternoons are a little rough on me. Not terrible or anything, but definitely the hardest, longest-feeling part of the day. My natural energy hits a valley around 2ish, and once we pick Gracie up from school the kids are on high-speed, high-volume. I'm an introvert, so that gets kind of overwhelming for me.

But Tuesdays, during laundry time, are nice.

We're all together, but we all have space. We talk and Charlie comes to give me lots of kisses as he tries (unsuccessfully) to avoid his folding.

I sit in the laundry room, on the floor, and fold into a plastic basket.

And look at the sunshine coming in through the window in the hall.

The sunshine through that window was my first indication that we needed to buy this house.

Oh I love it.

The kids take over the hall just outside the laundry room door, each with their own basket. They fold all their own clothes, and sometimes help with Juliette's.

And we fold and talk. And sometimes listen to music. And sit in the afternoon light.

And while I wouldn't say that I like laundry, it is kind of soothing to sit quietly(ish) and make order out of chaos, one fold, one crease, one stack at a time.

It is definitely one of our molecules.

Things They Say: Kissing Advice, Broken Trees, and What Jules Learned from Daniel Tiger

Kissing Advice
Charlie: You shouldn't kiss lips unless you're a grown up. Otherwise that's called stinky lips kiss.


Amphibious Opposites
Charlie has been really interested in opposites lately. We've covered a lot of them, usually on car rides, and he's got the basics down and likes to tell me randomly things like up is the opposite of down, or dark is the opposite of light. Also, frogs:

Charlie: What's the opposite of a frog on a beach?
Me: ...
Charlie: NO frog on a beach!


Not the Droid he was Looking For
Charlie (pointing to broken a tree): That tree got malfunctioned.


Upside Down Smiling
Charlie (grumpily): Your grumpy face makes my smile snap off.


Ultimate Birthday Breakfast
Steve (to Charlie): What do you want for your birthday breakfast, buddy?
Charlie: Hmm... Maybe... sugary hot dogs.

Steve and I have to duck down on the sofa to hide the fact that we are now shaking with silent laughter because WHAT? 

Steve (having regained control of himself): Sugary hot dogs?
Charlie: Yeah... With anything you WANT inside!

(...we talked him in to Panera instead.)

What Jules Learned from Daniel Tiger
Okay, first, if you are unfamiliar with the Daniel Tiger song "Grown Ups Come Back" just watch just the first two lines of this song, starting at 0:13.



With that context, here's what I heard from the back seat the other day.

Juliette: Do-oh-nuts come back!
Me: Haha. No. It's grown ups come back. Grown ups.
Juliette: I need some donuts in Juliette's mouth.

Thanksgiving, Walton Style

It's hard sometimes to write about holidays in a way that is honest but not whiny. The thing is, even though we are totally happy with the course of our life together, and feel blessed (in a non-cheesy non-hashtaggy way) to have an abundance of loveliness, hilarity, and kids, sometimes working life, love, and family around a medical profession is really hard.

People still get sick and have emergencies and stuff on holidays, so doctors have to be around to take care of that. Not always my Steve-doctor--but sometimes. That means a lot of things--that sometimes he's at work when the rest of us are together, focusing hard on what he's doing so he won't think about what he's missing. That sometimes it's Christmas night and I'm sitting by the Christmas tree, watching White Christmas alone. That sometimes our extended family is all together, 2,000 miles away from us. And this year, it meant that we found out just days before that Steve was going to be working in the MICU on Thanksgiving.

While it made both of us a little heartsick in the background of things, we were glad to have just that little heads up. Because, yeah it's rough and we don't love it--but there's nothing we can do about it. And one thing we've learned over the course of Steve's medical training years is that our attitudes--not work schedules, days off, or even proximity to other people who love us--are the best indicator of how wonderful (or not) a day is going to be. This counts double on holidays, when we feel extra aware of how a-typical our lifestyle is and how very far away we are from so many of the people that we love.

But we don't love wallowing, and we do love eating, so we both decided to suck it up and celebrate whenever he got home, and basically we just decided that no matter what, we'd let that be great.

And then it was!

I mapped out a little meal-prep plan to make sure that Thanksgiving day (when I'd be home cooking and solo with all three of our kiddos) would be low-stress. (Because if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy--and I'd like them to be happy on holidays because: memories. Also I love them.)

So I made mashed potatoes on Monday, homemade applesauce on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Steve prepped all the ribs for me so they would be marinated and ready to go on Thursday.

6:30am on Thanksgiving morning, Steve was in his saturated seafoam-green hospital-issue scrubs and off to work. The kids got up around seven, and we started the day slowly. They played and we ate breakfast, and once everyone was fed and happy, I asked Gracie if she'd like to help with the rolls.

She was thrilled.

I'm not naturally super comfortable in the kitchen (I didn't learn to make more than a batch of brownies or some pasta on my own until Steve started med school!) and I'm usually cooking under a deadline that involves my hungry little people clamoring for their dinner. (Stressful.) So even though she asks to help a lot, my Gracie girl doesn't get to clock a lot of time chefing.

It was great to have a long stretch of morning to bake with her while Charlie and Jules played. I was relaxed because we had plenty of time and nowhere to go, and nothing on the agenda except snack time at 10:30. I even set up the camera so I could document--and I'm so glad I did! Look at her ponytail swishing as she gets the mixer ready!

She got really into the process, which was fun to see. I had her read the recipe and talked her through each step, taught her about smoothing the top of her measures when she was baking with the edge of a butterknife, just like my mama taught me. And her smile was electric. :)

She wanted to do all of it--even the messy parts, like shaping the dough into a ball to let it rise. (Also pictured: happy trashcan.)

And of course she did some supervising and taste-testing during the baking and post-baking portions. :)

It was still early in the day when our rolls were done, so while I worked on tidying the kitchen and preparing the rest of the meal, the kids went outside to play on the back hill. Most of that little forest belongs to someone else, but there is a pink survey flag a couple feet in (still standing from when we bought the house) and that yard or so of forest is theirs to roam.

They discovered bugs and Gracie dug up some sticks and plants and a clod of grass to "plant" in her bucket so she could carry her little garden around with her. They dragged some chairs up into the woods, too, so they could better survey their kingdom. I kept looking out at them feeling all warm with gratitude that they have a plot of earth all their own to play in. We longed for them to have a playable backyard for years, and I love seeing them thrill over the outdoors.

I started the ribs (our chosen Thanksgiving dinner because [1] we're not really turkey fans and [2] the one time we tried to cook a turkey was traumatizing) around 2:30 while the kids were having their quiet time, first slow cooking them on a low temperature to get them nice and tender before kicking up the heat in the last hour and slathering them with sauce at 15-minute intervals. They were looking pretty killer even before the final layer went on. 

I grabbed some apples and candles and some leaves from the tree in our front yard and arranged them to decorate our table. For the first time I laid out the good china at the kids places, and gave the bigger two glass champagne flutes for our traditional Martinelli's cider. Their little faces and voices lit up when they discovered that they got to use those. ;)

And while I was setting Juliette's place I thought about how thankful I was to have her sweet little self around. Our babies are so precious to us, and two-year-olds (though spunky) are just so fun. Their tiny voices sharing their every thought and their chubby little fingers holding tiny silverware?

I can't even.

I had just sat the kids in front of Star Wars so I could finish up the last of the dinner preparations, when this guy got home!

Please notice the Mike Wazowski sticker on his name tag, which he placed there himself. He is my favorite person of ever.

The ribs were almost done but not quite, and he was dying of hunger, so he took the opportunity to run out to do our one-and-only piece of not-only Black Friday shopping (why is it happening on Thursday now???) while they finished cooking. When he got back we set up the good camera on the awesome $15 tripod I got from Amazon so we could take pictures of dinner and all five of us could actually be in them!

We all got a little excited about this and had to take a really lot of pictures before Steve and I had even served ourselves (Juliette, on the other hand, had already been working on a roll for a few minutes by the time anyone else even made it to the table).

The silly-face thing wore out for Steve and I (hungry!) before it did for the kids (see background of subsequent picture).

This is basically my favorite meal ever. I think ideally I would have had some fancy salad with cranberries, too, but I didn't feel like making one and nobody else offered. ;) So we had hot-from-the-oven sauce-slathered ribs, chilled homemade applesauce with cinnamon, mashed red russet potatoes, green beans with bacon, and homemade rolls with honey butter. Heaven!

(I ate this exact meal for as many days as possible afterward, until we ran out.)

Then I made Steve take another picture with me.

And Charlie remembered about the camera. :)

The kids wrapped up their meal with some mini-sour-watermelon shark candies. (What?!)

And then we all adjourned to the couch to finish watching Star Wars.

And if all that wasn't enough, I got to this moment at the end the evening with Jules in my lap, when I looked around and realized that we've become kind of a little crowd. Five of us piled on the couch like that. There were enough of us that I didn't feel lonely, even on a holiday, because we are kind of a little party all on our own.

And then Jules said to me with a happy sigh as she watched Chewbacca onscreen, "Wookie's so cute."

Man. Life is cute sometimes, huh? ;)

Happy (late) Thanksgiving. :)