Specimen of the Day: Merjay21

As I mentioned in my first ever Specimen of the Day feature, these posts are not based around birthdays. The proximity of a feature to a person's birthday is coincidental. That being said, Meredith's birthday is today, so happy birthday!


Name: Meredith Rose John

Surname: Maxfield (she's a former prof genealogist so she appreciates surnames)

Profession: Mother/teacher/genealogist (she really did major in genealogy and work as a professional genealogist in Utah- her company did some of the research on celebrities on this family history tv show)

Relationship history: We have been sisters since the day I was born. Crazy, I know. 

Age: 18 months older than me (yes, I was a "wonderful surprise" to my parents)

Spouse: Steven. They are coming up on their 5 year anniversary. Steven is in medical school. He's going to give us free Lasik in exchange for free basketball camps/training for their kids. Fair trade, right?

Kids: Weston Douglas- 3 months old. He's pretty adorable. It kills me that I won't meet him until he is 5 months old.

Assassination Attempts: Meredith tried to get rid of me by giving me pneumonia when I was just a few months old. It landed me in the hospital, but I came back stronger than ever. When we were a bit older I paid Meredith back by telling her it was "really cool" to stick your feet in the front wheel of your bike when you were going fast. Not surprisingly, she flipped over the front of her bike. She tattled on me, but my dad told her if she was dumb enough to actually it that was her problem.

John family rafting before Meredith's mission

Talents: Meredith is a great singer, field hockey player, ball-maker (ask her what this means), dancer, teacher, and lately, crafter extraordinaire. I credit pinterest for that last one.

Friends: I always had someone to play/fight with. I imagine Sadie and Elise's relationship being exactly like mine with Meredith and I will be deeply disappointed if it is anything less.

Laughter: No one can make me laugh like Meredith. We just get in a mood sometimes and {we think} everything we do is funny. Daniel loves to hear the way I laugh when Meredith is around.

One of those times we did persisted in doing strange things for a long time- hollowing out logs

Shared Friends: Being so close in age we often shared play dates and friends. This sometimes caused problems (in middle school I especially had issues with that), but in high school it was awesome. My junior year (her senior) in high school we spent most of our time together- usually laughing.

Visiting Meredith during her freshman year at BYU

Dancing: I mentioned Meredith is a great dancer. Now, I don't mean formal dancing, although Meredith did do 1 year of dance class. Meredith and I choreographed coordinated little dances, both as kids and high-schoolers. And I don't mean to brag, but I busted some ahhhhmazing dance moves at her wedding. I wish I had clips from their wedding video because I put on a show.

Bossy: I remember Meredith being very bossy as a kid, and I usually did what she said. Now I'm the bossy kid of the family.

She didn't even get mad when I made them take this picture 25 times on their wedding day

No Cheaters Allowed: Meredith is very competitive, but she would never, ever EVER cheat to win. To be honest, my whole family is this way. If we think someone is cheating we will never forget it, or forgive them.

Love/Hate Relationship: We spent a lot of our childhood together- both playing and fighting. We could play pretend for hours. We've had a few infamous physical fights in our day too (ask Troy and Tricia Tanner if you want details- they are a little hazy for me- maybe from being dragged by my hair down the stairs).

Spelling: Not Meredith's strong suit. One time in high school she wrote "by choclate" on the family white board for my mom to purchase and I did not let her live it down for years. She spelled every word she needed to write incorrectly. In reality, she isn't that bad, but I am mean and make fun of people too much.

Idol: I basically idolized Meredith and thought everything she did was amazing. I tried to be just like her, so you can credit her with why I turned out so awesome. :)

Why She's Awesome: Meredith is one of the most thoughtful, loving, and fun people that I know. I definitely get the better end in our sisterhood/friendship.

Two weeks before Sadie was born

It feels weird to boil down our relationship into a blog post, so this is just random tidbits. In writing this I discovered that we rarely take pictures of just the 2 of us. Every picture has other people! Geez, what's our problem, including other people. Meredith, that's priority #1 in April- no one else allowed.

On Cheese, Stickers & Growing Up

1. The art of enjoying cheese for the first time.

2. Sadie really likes to put stickers in weird places. This time, all over the floor. The placement might look haphazard, but she was incredibly deliberate about where each sticker went.

3. Sadie is now sleeping in her big girl bed that "Paco fixed", a.k.a. put together. It's been 2 weeks and most of the time she is pretty good about going to sleep. We have found her asleep on the floor a few times, but that's fine. Last night about 1/2 hour after we put her down I stood outside her door and listened to "The wise man built his house upon the rock" 40 times in a row. 

Elise is pretty indifferent about the new bed. She says, "big deal, who cares?"

Will you be my val-en-tine?

On Valentine's Eve we made some sugar cookies and valentines. Sadie insisted on rolling the dough out. 

Sadie then decorated some extra special cookies with about 1/3 cup of sprinkles on each.

  

Last year I mentioned that I wanted to follow in my mother's footsteps and have Valentine's Day be all about family love. I decorated the table, set out candy bags, and wrote heartfelt cards to everyone. Daniel picked up PF Changs takeout and the meal was complete.

Only the fanciest for us- I hung our heart cookie cutters from the light fixture.  

What can I say? I am high class like that.

The girls opened their little presents after dinner. 

Sadie was thrilled to unearth a mini ball pit blow up thing (official name) and 2 Disney VHS movies. Elise got a walker toy. So far Sadie plays with it more than Elise, but Lou was still excited about it.

See?

And another cute picture of Leesie for good measure. 

Mimi and Paco joined us for dinner as well. February 14th is Paco's birthday and he was nice enough to let the girls focus on their Valentines' presents instead of him, even though he really enjoys attention on his birthday.

Sadie joined us in a stirring rendition of "Happy Birthday" to round out the night.

The Jumpin Place

This place called Jump Around Town recently opened just down the street from us. 

It is basically a warehouse filled with bouncy houses, slides, and a huge jumping pillow, like this. 

The admission price is your child's age. A month unlimited pass is 3 times your child's age. 

We splurged on the $6 pass. We have gone 9 times in 3 weeks.

Why I love it: it's cheap, it's close, it's never crowded, it's aimed toward younger kids so there are no older kids being rough, and Sadie takes amazing naps after we go.

Louie thinks it's pretty fun too. 

Sadie basically thinks she owns the place now. Check out her jumping skills in the video.

Did I Catch a Niner in There?

9 months. Elise is...emotional. She smiles easily. She cries easily. I'm not sure when we decided that she was so sweet and laid back, but we always say it. The truth is that I am not sure it is possible for our DNA to create a sweet kid. She smiles a lot, but I'm starting to suspect that's just to lure you in close so she can rip out fistfuls of your hair. We love her more than anything, sweet or not.

Louie army crawls all over the joint, getting into everything she can. She's a menace. It makes us laugh so, so hard every time she takes Sadie's stuff. Yesterday Sadie cried like someone shot her when Elise chewed on her baby doll's feet. I can't wait to see Lou grow more and give Sadie a real run for her money. Elise adores Sadie, even when she tackles Lou to the ground with "hugs". The other day the girls were sitting in a grocery cart together taking turns squealing and making each other laugh. My fellow store patrons may not have appreciated it, but it was one the coolest moments of my life. Cannot wait until they play together more.

Lou's bottom teeth are almost completely in. More teeth are on the horizon. She is on the tall side (65th percentile) and she has been really burning the calories with army crawling (down to the 23rd weight percentile). She pounds cheerios, kix, puffs,  yogurt melts, goldfish and pretty much anything else I put in front of her. She's sleeping 11 hours a night and 2 long naps a day. She could care less about tv/movies (Sadie already loved Baby Einstein's at this age). Still a complete mama's girl and no one else will do if I am in sight. 

Her life is flying by. I remember feeling like Sadie was so old when she hit 9 months. And just because I never pass up an opportunity to compare my children, some photos of the girls at the same age:

I chose two pictures where they look a lot alike. Elise is more delicate looking, but that could be due to the fact that Sadie had almost 2 pounds on Elise at the same age (but Elise is taller). Still the same differences we have always recognized: Elise has big eyes, Sadie's got big cheeks. Speaking of cheeks, the photo above doesn't do Sadie's justice. Lest anyone has forgotten, here are the cheeks in all their glory:

And an innocent, little, chub-less gooer who smiles all day for her mama. 

On this day in 1993: Having Brothers, Hiding Journals & Hating Alexis

"Thursday _____1993 March [apparently I didn't know the date]- Mom ald ad already had the baby. It's a boy. She had him February 7th 1993. His name is Matthew. He hardly cries at all. I thought Hillary would be jealous of Matthew but she actually likes him. I hate the snow. Its been cold every day now for a couple weeks. So the snow doesn't melt. Tomorrow night we are going to the Omney theater and the science museum for Meredith's birthday. But Hillary and Alicia are not coming. Then mom says she is going to throw a suprise party for dad. But it's going to be at night. I thought I had lost you but then I found you hiding in the desk. I got a new journal and if you run away like that again I'll use that instead of you and forget about you. So don't hide again! Tomorrow is class picture day. Tonight we are celebrating Hillary's birthday. Hillary even has cloths presents. She also has a birthday cake. Hillary is turning two years old. You know that game that's called going to South America? Well I know the strategy and so does Justin. But Alexis asked the student teacher and she told Alexis what it was! So now Alexis telling everybody what is was. And blaming it on Annie. I hate Alexis. Well I wish I could go to South America right now! Because this hous is so noisy."

*I try to type exactly how I wrote things, but I had a hard time figuring out what was original to this entry because in 5th grade I went through and edited my entire journal. I, seriously, cannot wait until my kids do weird stuff like that.

Snow

Sadie loves snow. She is willing to play outside with freezing limbs as long as we let her. The first bigger storm we got this year was on a Sunday. Sadie came home from church, put on her boots, and went straight outside. No tights, no gloves- just boots, a dress and a coat (with the arms rolled up because Sadie has some sort of phobia of sleeves touching her wrists). 

Sadie marched back and forth across the snow for an hour.

MimiPaco

One of my favorite pictures of all time

When Sadie talks about Daniel's parents they are often referred to as the collective force of MimiPaco. She addresses them individually in person, but they are usually MimiPaco when not in her presence. My girls love their MimiPaco. We are so glad they have been in Utah the past while so the girls get to see them all the time. Please enjoy the plethora of pictures from the past month or so.

 Check out Lou's halo of rings

Btw, we have no idea where the name Paco came from. Tom had decided on Bearpaw and somehow Sadie turned that into Paco. There's no turning back now and I love it. 

I took a break from blogging for most of January (I like to start a new year out really low so I can only improve from there), but I kept taking pictures so I need to share a few good ones. 

 Elise fell asleep with her usual scowl, but what is really exciting is that she fell asleep on Daniel. For cute.

 Sadie got The Incredibles for Christmas and she always tells me that she runs so fast like Dash. Apparently my camera agrees. 

 Looking intense at the "jumpin place". It's our favorite place to be lately. I'll do another post on it.

 The first real snow we got this year (and it wasn't bad). Sadie loved it. I'll do another post on it (but probably not, so don't count it).

 The UVU Athletics holiday party held at the end of January. It was a cross between the Dundees and that SNL skit with the Culps (Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer performing at assemblies and such). But the comedy here was not intentional.

 Louie forced me to accept she does not fit into her 6-9 month pjs by busting her piggies out. I guess I won't make her wear them anymore.

 A different kind of piggy- check out that hair-do. Sadie was loving it; I could tell she felt so cool. She walked with a different kind of confidence that day. Maybe I should always try to make her hair look like a non-homeless person's. 

 Yes! Sadie has entered into the phase of life where all the kids "assist" in opening presents at birthday parties. I was giggling too much to get a non-blurry picture.

 Sadie actually wearing tights. That's a momentous occasion. Probably won't happen again soon. Especially since she has since realized she can take them off herself.

Sadie made a bridge with her books across the living room. She told me there were alligators in the water.