Valentine's and Babies

The beginning of January I signed the girls up to go to a "Daddy-Daughter Dance" for Valentine's Day. Of course I was so excited to for Maryn and Adyson to have this special evening with their dad, dancing and all dressed up. Immediately Maryn started complaining, "I am not going! Only little girls are going to be there with their dads! No one in my class is going to be there! I will feel so stupid dancing with my dad!" First of all I was so surprised because Maryn is our dancer and loves to go anywhere where there is music and dancing. I thought for sure she would love a "date" out and to go out to dinner somewhere special. I couldn't believe it! We tried saying all the things a parent would say like, "you will have so much fun. There will be so many girls there with their dads. Think how special Daddy will feel being on a date with his girls...go for him. Go for Ady and help her have a great time." Nothing worked because she was determined she was going to feel stupid. What an aching feeling it is for a parent to know their children are starting to get embarrassed by them...that they're getting old enough to think a daddy/daughter date is not cool anymore. We talked about it for a month as if she were going only to get the same argument. The day before the date we finally got down to the nitty-gritty of the situation. I asked Maryn to tell me how she knew that the kids in her class would make fun of her if she went. I asked her to tell me how she knew that no one else was going. Well, she couldn't answer either question and Saturday night, out the door they all went. THEY HAD A BLAST! and do you know what? There were tons of girls there that Maryn knew...lots of girls from church and lots from school. I told Maryn that she was a ninny! They ate, danced, got their pictures taken and had lots of fun!

Jeff even got the girls roses for the occasion. So great! While at the dance they got their picture taken too.
In February the schools have a "Mid-Winter Break" I guess to help break up the long, dreary, wet Washington winters. Everyone goes to Hawaii, Mexico, Bahama Cruises, California...you know, real warm, sunny places to get some healthy Vitamin D back into their systems. Well, I put on my Super Mom cape and flew with the 4 children by myself to Utah. Since I hate to fly anyway it was extra stressful but I was grateful it was less than a 90 minute flight. I won't go into all the huge details of Kaden saying good-bye to Jeff at the airport...huge echoing screams down the terminal, "Daaaaaaddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Or the fact that all 5 of us were assigned seats with no 2 seats together and I got a bit teary when the gate agent and 1 flight attendant would not be helpful to me in arranging to move things around a bit so at least I could sit with my 2 year old. Like what was I going to do, sit him next to a stranger and say, "would you please open his peanuts for him and read him these books? And if he needs me I'll be in the way back." Holy Cow that was all too stressful. The story ends good that the University of Utah gymnastics team was sitting in the back of the plane and 3 moved places so I could sit with Emmy and Kaden. Maryn and Ady were on their own somewhere.

Anyway, this was a special and important visit because we had to meet our very first Matheson cousin!!!! Spencer James Shuman, Marianne's 3 week old baby. We were so excited to hug and kiss him and for a whole week that's all we did. Oh, it was so fun. We loved helping Marianne and loved that she slept over at Mom and Dad's house for the whole week while James worked his graveyard shift.

Kaden was even so gentle with Spencer. Being around Spencer made our 2 year old Kado seem so big.

We introduced Spencer to the Slichta's favorite "bassinet"...a laundry basket. It seriously is the best place for a new baby to sleep because it's snugly and tight and you can carry him around wherever you are in the house.
Everyone took their turn in loving Spencer and thinking that they knew just exactly what Spencer needed at the moment. He was so patient and hardly ever cried.The kids love going to Grandma and Grandpa's house because there are "kids" there...Marc and Merrill. It has been said that "they're silly and weird,"
Kaden especially loves Marc...they played soccer together and bonded with other"boy" things. Grandpa and some of the Uncles took the kids out for a night to a fun jumping place. They had a great time. Jeff also came for the weekend and took the kids roller skating. It was one fun thing after another.

It's not a real trip to Utah unless we go bowling. The best part was watching Emmy push her ball down the lane going so slow...real s-l-o-w- m-o-t-i-o-n, she would get bored watching the ball and lay on the floor. The pins would fall over 1 by 1 in slow motion and she even got few strikes.

I must say that this was the first trip that we made to Utah while living in Seattle and it was really hard to leave. It was hard to leave family and friends and fun and sunshine to return to a place of strangers and new places and clouds. Seattle still didn't seem like home to us. The other reason why it was hard was because Jeff went on to Washington DC while I had to fly alone with the kids. Except for a bumpy flight everything went OK. It was a great trip and we sure do love Spencer!

Our House

Jeff picked out our house. He did a decent job. I had made 2 house-hunting trips to Seattle and we really scoured the area. Lots of great houses for way too much money and lots of really dumb houses in our price range. We bought this house after he had already started his job. The house he chose was WAY out of our price range but in the right neighborhood, in the right school and in a great ward. We felt good about it so we knew Heavenly Father would somehow take care of us.
The thing we learned about new Seattle houses was that the color they painted the rooms was an ugly mustard color to supposedly brighten things up with the gloomy weather. To me, the color wasn't cheery, but ugly. It would be the first to go along with the hospital white walls above it.
Ok then, so Christmas was a week away and I was feeling overwhelmed with the house. We had been in it now for over a month and I wasn't in the mood to decorate since I pretty much hated everything about the house at this point. I needed to feel "at home" pretty darn quick especially with Christmas coming. So, I looked in the phone book and started calling...I just went down the list asking people to paint that week...the week before Christmas. Everybody said no except for this guy who said, "I can come over now and give you an estimate." I was excited but also worried that he was so available he could be there right now. A nice Korean man came over and looked around, gave me a decent estimate and said he would be back tomorrow to start painting. He also said, "Sister Slichta, I am Brother Young." That stopped me and confused me for a second. I said, "What? Really?!" He knew we were members of the church because of our picture of Jesus on the piano. Woah! Come to find out Brother Young just got done painting for the Seattle Temple renovations. He must be good. He was and for the next several days before Christmas we all bonded...he and his friend who spoke no English from the Philippines. I had gone to my neighbors, a lady in our ward to get my hair done. As I sat in her kitchen and looked around her house for 2 hours I fell in love with color of her walls...."Moose point." I had to have it. I actually went and bought 6 gallons of it the next day and finally we had in on our walls. Oh, the house felt so warm and yummy to me. There were many who felt the color was too dark especially for living here, but I loved it! Now, the challenge came to decorating. I was overwhelmed. Never before had I had such a huge home with huge ceilings. Our stuff just looked midget in the rooms and I was frustrated. So, who to call when you need a home decorator but the queen herself...Lorey Beck, Jeff's sister. She is supreme with ideas and designs. She and Kelley came out to assist and Grammy came with them to be the other assistant and the babysitter. They came Thursday afternoon, gathered thoughts and ideas for the day and Friday and Saturday was spent shopping, shopping, painting and putting together.

This is us smooshed into the car after 1 day of shopping. Can you see we had lots of good luck? We had lots of fun too but hardly had any room for our bodies in that car.

Ok, now I didn't want to be a complainer, but the color of the kitchen and family room had gradually worn on me over the 2 1/2 months while we had been there. It was a green, the same green color as our couch. It had a grey tone to it which bothered me more and more. Fortunately, Kelley, Lorey and Grammy agreed with me 100%. So, what did we do? We painted. What started out as a "let's paint 1 wall so we can see how it's going to look," turned into a whole job completed except for 1/2 of a wall. Peanut Butter was the color and boy was it yummy and cheery.

BEFORE

AFTER

The top of our kitchen cupboards

Another thing with new homes in the Seattle area is that they put white carpet in the homes to "brighten them up." Well, we think it should be called "pain-in-the-rear-carpet." Talk about a pain to keep clean and vacuumed. So, we ordered new carpet and had that put in only in the family room. I think we bring the vacuum out only every other day now instead of 3 times a day. The first couple of weeks I had a handy-man guy come out. He put a counter and cubbies in the laundry room, shelving in a big closet in the office, made cubbies in the kids closet with hooks and things and put extra shelves in the master closet. We also had a company come out and install a built-in desk in the office.

Custom designed. It's a beauty.

Now we have places to put stuff and we have 90% of our boxes empty. We just need to organize ourselves. I forgot that we painted the office which used to be a super bright forest green and the upstairs bathroom which was a super bright, obnoxious blue. So...we are doing good. We are liking our house more and more and still have a ways to go with it. I need to figure out a way to get the maid to clean the toilets more often and the laundry lady to put the clothes away after folding them. The butler needs to have a healthy warm mealed prepared closer to 5:30. The Nanny would do well to get the children to pick up all of their toys and shoes and backpacks and paper creations and to make a little less noise on the wood floors. The housekeeper needs to get the finger prints off of the windows and to prepare Jeff's slippers upon arrival home from a stressful day at work. The tutor would be wise to have all the kid's homework done before dinner receiving only A grades. Other than that we are doing a pretty great job! After 5 months of being in our home we've come along way and we're liking it more and more.

Happy Birthday Maryn!

Maryn turned 11 on Friday! I can't believe my baby, my firstborn is 11. Eleven seems to be a big birthday for her, and me, only because I remember when I turned 11. That seems to be the age where my memory really kicks in and I remember so much more. I remember being in Mr. Rockwell's 5th grade class and having tons of friends. I remember moving to Utah and being the "new kid" in Ms. Clauson's class at Grandview. I remember my self-awareness, self-esteem and insecurities beginning to kick in during this time...my body changing...my life changing and feelings of growing up coming on. Anyway, because of all of this I can't believe that Maryn is 11. I am aware more than ever how quickly she is growing up, closer to being a teenager and closer to all the big things teenagers do. It's scarey for me and exciting at the same time. She has always wanted to be older than she really is...already ready for the next birthday soon after she has one. She is a great girl...so talented and so helpful. She brings so much energy and happiness in our home.

It's been a while since we did something super fun as a family...just us...not at home. We spent Maryn's birthday at the Cascade Ridge Science Fair. She had a project in it as well as a million other kids. So we had to devote our night to that. Saturday became our family party day. We went to the Snoqualmie mountain pass, about 40 minutes away and went tubing. The fun part of this experience was that after you sled down one of the 15 groomed lanes on a super slick tube you could ride the rope tow back to the top. Ah, that's the way not to exhaust yourself. We did realize that although it was much faster to just hike the hill yourself it was much more restful to take the ride back up. Kaden cracked us up the whole 2 hours. We imagined chasing him all over the place or him not wanting to tube down the hill, but, as you see him in the above picture is how he stayed the whole 2 hours. He stayed in that tube and either Jeff or I layed across the top of it as we slid down. He hardly made a peep but was wide-eyed watching everyone and probably scared to death as we screamed down the hill.

Adyson and Emmy were nervous at first to go down the hill. They wouldn't go by themselves and they sat for a while deciding whether or not they would go together. But, just as is typical with the 2 of them, once they break out of their fear and do it they love it and you can't stop them. They became partners going up and down by themselves and were so sad when our session ended. Of course none of us could keep up with Maryn. She ran ahead of us as soon as we got out of the car. She rarely waited for us to all go down together. She had to get as many runs in as she could. She got running starts on her tube so she could ride faster and further and she ran right back up the hill to start over. So typcial of all of their personalities.

We could not believe the huge amounts of snow that was up there. Just driving down the road we saw lodges nearly covered in snow or gas stations with huge walls of snow letting you into the pump. It was amazing !

It was a great day for all of us. The sun was shinning to brighten our spirits even more. And as is typical with family outings the parents always wonder if it's worth it because of the struggle and stress to get out the door. But, it was worth it! It felt great to laugh and scream and tackle the kids in the snow and see all of their smiles. I know that Maryn had a great birthday weekend turning 11. We love you Maryn!!!