time for my biannual posting

i think it's safe to say that blogging is not turning into my super favorite hobby, but i enjoy reading others' blogs quite a bit, so i'll keep this sad little blog gimping along and one of these years i might just get regular about posting...

a quick update for those who might not know: our family has changed quite significantly this past year-my sister amy and her two children are living with us now, which brings the adult count in the house to three, and the kid count in the house to four...until october. cuz we're having another babaaaaaaaay! woo hoo. i'm due 10/10/10, and yes, it's another girl! apparently geoff+molly=baby girls. we're excited, and so are all the kids. i am also very glad that we have a house with a finished basement....i hope the old lady who lived in a shoe had a finished basement in that shoe.

we've chosen the baby's name, so for all three of my regular readers, you get the sneak peek-yee haw! her name will be kajsa molly archibald. for those of you who aren't fluent swedish speakers, the name kajsa is pronounced "kai-sah". no i don't speak swedish either, but we've liked this name for a long time (it was a serious contender when we were choosing georgia's name). i've received mixed feedback from those i've told it to thus far, (ranging from, "oh what a beautiful name, i love it!", to "sounds like a made up utah name to me!" but we are 100% sure this is the baby's name, and we 100% don't care if people don't like it. so, kajsa it is! i'm sure she will encounter plenty of people with even more "unique" names than hers, given the baby names i've heard recently (pixel, pepper, brayley....) so i'm not super worried about it. besides, any kid of ours will have naturally good self esteem, right? :)

other than baby news, there has been plenty of excitement to keep us busy around here--if you count various illnesses as excitement. it seems like we've all been taking turns getting sick. this weekend it was geoff and quinn's turn-georgie got in on the action by deciding to sprout her 2 year molars a little early-so i got to play nursemaid today. i don't think i'd make a good nurse in real life, but when my patients are so adorably pathetic, i don't mind.

geoff also attempted to take a continuing education course in chicago this weekend (right before his stomach bug decided to show up-wah) so i had the kids and house to myself on friday and saturday...quinn had already taken to the couch like a lump, poor thing, so georgie and i did some mama projects. really, georgie tortured the cat and i indulged in some serious de-crapification. i don't know that anyone but me would notice but seriously how many sippy cups does one family need?!! especially since none of the tops matched any of the bottoms. gone gone gone. also cleared out: about 50,000 scribbled up coloring books, a sad sad excuse of a pillow-it might be older than our marriage, honestly-and, the saddest one of all, a record player.

this was my mom's record player. except that i never actually saw her use it. and i owned exactly three records. and the entire time i've owned it (coming up on six years) it has needed a needle replacement....goodbye, record player! (and the 3 records too) i've been contemplating getting rid of that thing since about five minutes after i brought it home. not sure why it took me so long--which brings me to the biggest accomplishment of the entire weekend: the PINK SHOEBOX OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

alright kids, hop into your Way Back Machines, because it's time to go down memory lane....all the way back to 1996. which my dear friend nancy pointed out was fifteen years ago. FIFTEEN. i am officially old.

so in 1996, nancy and i embarked on a fantastic adventure in moscow russia--we went over there and taught english as a second language to young children. we were there for 5 months, then did some travelling through europe afterward. one of the best times of my life, for sure. definitely one of my formative experiences, and such a great way to get out of my comfort zone. and oh yes, the pictures. i took approximately 899,994 pictures. which i then came home and developed on the "free doubles day" at my friendly walgreens. (remember having to get pictures developed? i might as well get out the geritol right now!) after looking through the pictures several times and even LABELING the envelopes by month (so sophisticated, my organizational system!) i shoved all bajillion envelopes into a pink shoebox and....then did nothing. for fifteen years.

of course, my intention was always to put them in an album and to appropriately label the pictures with heartwarming stories and touching details. i never deluded myself into thinking i would make a scrapbook with metro passes glued onto the pages and stickers saying cute phrases in scrolly cyrillic lettering....i'm just not a scrapbooking kind of chick-BUT, for fifteen years, i never so much as opened the box. it just seemed so overwhelming and not something i'd ever have the time to do. UNTIL NOW!!! cue the dramatic music, folks--i did it!

the funniest thing is that once i finally opened the shoebox, it hardly took me any time at all--i sat with a trashcan by my side and quickly got rid of all the doubles (except for a few that i knew i'd want to send to nancy). it was so gratifying to reduce the stack by 50% so quickly that i just wanted to keep going--what a pathetic thing to get so excited about, right!?

then i went through the stack again and it was immediately apparent which shots were important enough to hang on to and which weren't. something about being 15 years removed from the situation. :) so i ended up with 2 big envelopes of pictures, which i've since sorted out a little further into smaller categories-i'm getting an album THIS WEEK and sticking them in there, labelling them with what few bits of information remain in my sad 34 year old brain, and then i'm DONE! i even put the doubles in the mail for nancy already...i thought if i didn't do it right away, i might wait another 15 years. :)

it took me about 30 minutes to do what i've been avoiding for fifteen years. i'm really going to try hard to remember that then next time i'm tempted to put something off. does anyone need a really old pink shoebox?

food for thought

so yesterday the internet was acting up, and we were without the magical superbox for most of the day. it turned out to be a rather productive day. i'm not saying these two things are related in any way.

lies and the liars who tell them.

trying to come up with an appropriately sheepish/gee i've been super busy this...year phrase is kind of hard. i think i thought blogging would come somewhat more naturally, but i confess that while i really enjoy reading others' blogs, i haven't forced myself to sit down and update my own because...i'm lazy. i like updating my facebook status because i can do it in one or two sentences and that's it. i suppose i could just write one sentence blog posts but i don't know if that would go over so well. 2010 looms on the horizon and i'm avoiding making a declaration about the frequency of upcoming posts, since we all know how well that turned out for me THIS year. still, i believe in the idea of this blog! i have faith that eventually i will magically turn into a super blogger. or at least one who writes more than twice a year. maybe if i tell myself i don't have to post any pictures ever, that'll take the pressure off and i'll actually write? 

i just attempted to sum up the last year in one paragraph and then i realized that would be both dumb and ineffectual. here's the quick status on life RIGHTTHISMINUTE.

Quinn is 3.5 and loves going to preschool 2 mornings a week, and pretending her name is Jessie. (why? i have no idea.)

Georgie is 14 months and lives to walk/run/destroy everything, all the time

Boo is still a fat lazy cat who lives to eat plastic and then puke on the rug

Geoff's practice is going really well--he is having a good time and staying busy

I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off most of the time. my sister Amy and her two kids (Sophie- age 5 and Marcus-age 2) are living with us now, and Amy is going back to school. so that means we have a one, two, three, and five year old in our house. good thing we finished the basement last year. :)

alright. i can now officially cross off "update stupid blog already" off the continual list of "things i should really get around to doing but probably won't". hurrah. 

bits and bobs. no pictures though.

"fresh with no mistakes in it"...anyone recognize that line from anne of green gables? i love january (at least the first few days of january) because i haven't made TOO many mistakes yet. we started off 2009 with a bang-geoff and i ran the polar dash 5K along the mississippi yesterday morning with 800 of our closest friends. brrr it was chilly (about 9 degrees) but once we finally got going we warmed up quickly and really enjoyed ourselves.

this was a well organized run-the team that sponsored it actually holds a series of 6 races throughout the year, and if you do all of them, you can get a really nice running jacket. it's a bummer because you have to do all 6 races, and 2 of them are held on sundays. geoff and i do not participate in athletic events on sundays (email me if you are interested in knowing our reasons behind this) so we aren't eligible for the jacket.

it's kind of dumb, i know--running isn't about the t-shirt or the jacket, and i know plenty of people think it is stupid to pay money to run with a bunch of people you don't know when you can just run on your own for free. but i freely admit to being totally motivated by the t-shirt or the jacket, and i love running with a big group of people who are all just as excited to be there as i am. i'm not a very good runner, but now that i have experienced a few races, i don't think i'll ever be able to give this hobby up. yes, i admit it. i do pretend all the spectators are there to to cheer ME on. :)

we spent the rest of the day cleaning out the closet and desks in our computer room...sadly, it did take all afternoon. when we lived in the duplex, i was really on the ball about keeping the junk from coming into the house, and i made drop-offs at the thrift store almost weekly. we just didn't have the space to do otherwise. now that we are in a much larger house, the clutter has begun to take over...it is subtle and takes a while to notice, because we have lots more places to stash it. but it has started getting to me so i'm back on the decrapification bandwagon. (special credit to audrey and tyler for that excellent term, decrapification). i know i'm not the only one who gets this way at the beginning of a new year--i'm sure the thrift stores will experience a swell of donations in the next few weeks. hopefully people will donate good stuff and not trash.

in other news, quinn is rapidly approaching her 3rd birthday and is currently deep in the throes of "i can do it myself-itis". it's great, except for when it sucks. most of the time i love it that she is becoming so independent and that she wants to do things on her own. but when she tries to do something and she can't quite get it, she goes from happy and independent to impatient and whiny in about .4 seconds. THAT is the part that sucks. one of the things she is unable to do on her own is to put her mittens on. i should call them "glubs", because that is the only way she refers to them. so she wants her glubs on and she wants them on RIGHT.NOW. well, honey, i can't help you because i'm driving right now and i don't want us to go off the road and die in either a fiery ball of anguish or an icy pit of despair (these being the two options when you live by approximately 953 lakes) so could you pretty please wait for just a minute until we get to the stoplight? no? ok, continue with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

georgie is our deliciously chubby smiler. she has 3 rolls on her legs--ABOVE the knee. she is coming up on her 4 month mark and i think she weighs almost 18 pounds. i would worry except that quinn was almost the same and while she is certainly not petite, she has slimmed down and gotten quite tall. besides, there is just something so yummy about a big round squishy baby girl.

and yes. we do have pictures. there are about a zillion on our camera. i've been putting off blogging because i haven't taken the time to get the pictures off the camera. but again, i resolve to do better. 2009 will be the year of pictures. you won't be able to get away from us. just call us britney.

30 years ago today!

geoffrey david archibald was born, hurray! as i learned from the always informative and sometimes entertaining internet, 30 years ago today was the horrific jonestown massacre in guyana. let's focus on geoff!

i was going to write 30 things i love about geoff, but my 2 month old is freaking out a little here, so let's go with 3. each one stands for ten years. :)

1. geoff is the sort of person who does not require an audience-if he thinks something is funny, he will do it or say it, even if nobody is there to ham it up for.
2. geoff is a thoughtful person, both in how he treats other people, and in how he forms his opinions-he doesn't just spout an idea simply because he heard someone else say it.
3. geoff is a fantastic kisser.

i love you geoff! happy birthday!

the depths of my nerdliness know no bounds...

i am so excited! my awesome sister-in-law sarah is in town visiting with her teeny weeny baby (seriously, georgie is only 2 weeks older than edie but georgie looks like she ate edie) and look what we spent 2 hours doing yesterday!!

before

after

yes. i am a dork to be so happy that my pantry now looks like a grocery store shelf. hurray!!

i'm feeling nostalgic...

i've been inspired by my friend mari's blog--she just wrote the story of how she met and married her husband. i know i always love hearing other people's stories, but if you're not interested in this sort of thing--SKIP IT!

edited to add: this ended up being SUPER long, because i remembered a lot more than i thought i did, and i thought it would be good to get it all down in one place. so if you don' t have a long time to sit and read all this stuff, my feelings won't be hurt, i promise...

geoff and i met in september 1997. we were both attending the st. paul fifth ward (aka singles ward), which met at the institute of religion at the university of minnesota. geoff was a freshman that year, and since he was pre-mission, 2.5 years younger than me, and i was dating someone at the time, i didn't give him a second thought.

this person i was dating was geoff's home teacher, however, and he came to me saying, geoff archibald--you know, the freshman? he's having a rough time in his comp. class, and i was wondering if you'd mind helping him out. i said sure, and set up a time with geoff to work on his paper.

we met in the library at the institute, and worked on his composition-he started out by telling me that his professor actually announced that she doesn't give "A"s. nice! the topic of the paper was his green couch. (riveting stuff!!) we actually had a really good time working on the paper and had fun talking together and getting to know each other. geoff was also dating someone, and the 2.5 year age difference seemed enormous at the time, so there was no flirting or tension-just getting to know each other.

the next week, geoff came up to me and said "we got an A!!" i will always remember that, how he said "we". i thought that was pretty cool. we were good friends from that point, and we hung out together relatively often. since we were both involved with other people, it was usually in a group, but we really had a good time.

this is somewhat unrelated but too funny not to include--that winter, there was a sledding activity-after the activity, there were a bunch of us sitting around at the institute drinking hot cocoa and warming up. geoff and i were sitting next to one another on the couch, and nearby, our friend c.j. was flirting like MAD with this girl tessie. they were talking about the movie "somewhere in time" and one of them was saying that they'd never seen it before. they started talking about how they needed to get together to watch it, and geoff pipes up, "oh, i've never seen that movie before, either." c.j. and tessie completely ignored him and kept flirting, and geoff turned to me and said, "did you see that?? they are totally going to get married!!" and guess what--they did! just a funny aside..

geoff went to his parents home in idaho (they moved there right before he started college) for a few weeks before leaving on his mission to england. he called me from idaho, and i was feeling kind of gloomy because i'd just broken up with someone. (video game guy). i remember that he cheered me up and made me remember all the reasons i'd broken up with video game guy--i promised i would write to geoff, and we hung up.

i DID keep my promise---i wrote to geoff once when he was in the missionary training center, and once right before he came home. :) the letter before he came home was actually to see if he'd want to go out on a date with my sister amy. geoff's brother kent and i had been talking, and we thought it would be fun to set up our siblings. i'd called amy out at byu to tell her i had the perfect guy for her, and she said, "geoff? he's more like my friend--i don't think i could think of him that way." my response? "come on, amy! geoff is a great guy and i want you to marry him so i can be related to him!" (too funny!!!)

geoff came home and we went out--amy (who was home from byu on winter break) and geoff, and me and kent. we had dinner and went to see "o brother, where art thou?". kent and i hung back to let amy and geoff talk, and we thought we were being totally sneaky...

amy went back to school, and i told all my friends in the singles ward to stay away from geoff, since i was reserving him for my sister. (i didn't tell him this, though) geoff didn't have a car, and lived close by me, so i gave him rides often, and we hung out together. then we were asked to be in charge of the activities committee together at church, so we spent even more time together. all this time, we were hanging out, and i thought i was reserving him for amy...

geoff asked me out on a double date, but he did it in such a way that i didn't think he was interested in me, just that he needed someone to go with. we went out together and had a really good time--the story of that date is pee-your-pants funny but this is already getting too long, so i'll save it for another time--after the double date, i started thinking, hmmm, maybe i could be interested in geoff.

i actually called amy up at school and told her i was having a problem, because i was saving geoff for her, and i thought i was starting to like him. she laughed and said to go for it because she wasn't interested. i also told a friend, sara, that i thought i could be interested in geoff. she was excited for me, since i was going on another double date with him the next night. (totally orchestrated by me in a completely manipulative and passive-aggressive, let the guy think he's chasing you but really you're just letting him catch you sort of way)

we went on the double date (to see "the sting" on campus in completely uncomfortable chairs) and after the movie was over, we said good night to the other couple and he asked me if i'd like to go on a walk. it was march 17th. in minnesota. BRRRR...i said of course! we walked around for a few minutes, and when geoff noticed that my face was turning blue, he made his little declaration. it was completely adorable and endearing.

we went back to the car, and i told him i thought he was brave to put his feelings out there when he wasn't sure how i was feeling. he hemmed and hawed, and then admitted that my friend sara "can't keep her mouth shut" vaneps had blown my cover and had told him i was interested. (technically, she didn't TELL him, but she let him know without coming out and saying it. all for the cause, i know! but still!!) we had a good laugh, and then decided to play a practical joke on sara. i called her from the car and told her i was home from the date and that it was a total dud. i told her my crush on geoff had been completely momentary, and i was totally over it. i added that i was SO lucky to have her for a friend, because i could tell her all my stupid secrets and didn't have to worry about anyone ever finding out. poor sara was really squirming at this point, but just to make it really awful, i said, "you didn't TELL anyone, did you?" sara sounded about 2 inches tall and she answered, "ummmm...", but we finally let her off the hook and told her we were just playing a trick on her. not the nicest thing to do to a friend, i know...

geoff and i didn't date too long before getting engaged--just a few months. i know some people would find that foolish, but the nice thing was that we already knew each other really well, since we'd been friends for so long. we were married in the st. paul temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on dec. 28, 2001. we'll be celebrating our seventh anniversary next month, and we've been blessed with 2 beautiful daughters, Quinn and Georgia. it is so wonderful to be married to your best friend.