Kiersten’s Blog

I bought a new stroller on Tuesday. It’s not just any stroller. It’s a Phil and Ted. I was planning on buying one long ago. When we lived in Pomona, I had a really good group of friends who I walked with every morning. People in town called us the stroller brigade. We all pushed a stroller. Eventually, we all got pregnant again, and were in the market for buying new strollers. Amanda settled on the Phil and Ted. Rachel already had one and we were all envious. She was smart enough to buy it as her first stroller. Sarah went with the B.O.B. Revolution Duallie. She had just given birth to her second child and wanted to start jogging again. I had just started jogging and wanted to keep it up. I did a lot of research on the stroller that I would buy. It was kind of a big investment (on a small budget) and I wanted to make sure I was buying the perfect stroller. I finally settled on the Phil and Ted. Then, after a bit more research and field tests, I decided the Valco Runabout Tri-Mode would be the best option for me. It is meant for jogging and the Phil and Ted is not. Plus, when I tried out the Phil and Ted with the doubles seat attached, my knees hit the seat as I walked. Soon I miscarried and didn’t need an expandable stroller, but I bought the Valco anyway, knowing that I would use it, and someday be able to add a toddler seat to it, if needed.

The Valco served me well for almost four years. After I had Ashton, though, it became a lot more difficult to push. The added weight, along with the placement of the toddler seat right over the front wheel made it really difficult to turn, unless I was going fast. I got used to it, though. Then recently, the bar in the back that goes between the two wheels to make it more stable, broke. Now it’s near impossible to turn if I’m pushing two kids, not to mention unsafe. I did, however, take it on my jog on Monday, while pushing just Ashton in it, and it worked like a charm. I loved it! I called the company to see what it would take to repair, and I would have to buy a whole new back end frame, which would cost $7o. I’ve also been looking into getting it welded, but haven’t found anybody that can do it yet. Apparently welding aluminum is kind of a difficult task and there’s not much market for stroller repair. In the mean time, I found a Phil and Ted on Craigslist for $60. How could I pass that up? It’s an older model. I’m guessing it’s about the same age as my Valco. Recently I’ve been wondering if I should have gone the Phil and Ted route in the beginning. Now I have them both and I can compare them side by side. I really like the design of the Phil and Ted, but my initial suspicions proved true when I took her out on her maiden voyage today. I kept hitting my knees against the back seat. It’s not a big deal when I’m walking, but if I was jogging, I think it would really bug me. I do like, however, that the Phil and Ted is much easier than the Valco to maneuver around a store. It’s narrower and easier to turn with two kids riding along. Have I found the perfect stroller? No. But I have two really good ones and I’m thinking that the perfect stroller doesn’t really exist.

Anybody know how I can become a stroller critic?

Music has always been a constant in my life.  I started learning the violin at the age of four.  My mom took me to a lot of concerts and I played in festivals and orchestras.  As I grew older, my tastes changed.  I listened to many different genres.  I really do enjoy listening to all types of music.  I remember in college having to have music on all the time.  If I was at home, I always had some type of music on.  Since I was a music major, I spent the majority of my classes listening to or playing music.  I spent the rest of my time practicing music.

Life is different now.  I enjoy silence.  I like just listening to the sounds around me.  Maybe it’s the mommy ears that I have that make me want my home quiet more often.  Sometimes things get so chaotic, that all I want is silence.  Other times, I want the quietness so that I can hear when the baby wakes up, or when dinner’s ready, or when my pre-schooler calls out, needing another glass of water.  I feel as though I can’t concentrate when I have background music on.  Often, if one were to take a picture of the goings on in my home, they would see me doing the things I do, and my husband doing the things he does, except he would be wearing headphones.  As I was driving today, with music blasting in the car, I suddenly thought, “The music’s too loud, I can’t hear the music.”  What a funny thought!  I think I was just missing the sounds of silence.

It’s been two months and two days since we moved into our house.  It’s high time I posted some before and after pictures.  The guests are gone and the place is fairly clean, so here it is!

There you go!  That’s your tour for the day.

Taylor and I have been lucky enough to spend the last two nights listening to lovely music.  Tonight we saw the San Diego Bach Collegium.  A friend of his from graduate school conducts the group.  They were fantastic!  I was actually surprised at how good they were.  I was expecting a good concert, but not as good as I heard.  They performed all six motets written by Bach.  It was very enjoyable.  I will admit, though, I was really tired and kind of fell asleep.  But not enough to make me not hear or get startled when applause happened.  I still thought it was exceptional.  We get to see them again next month.  I’ll try to be more rested before the concert next time so maybe my eyes will stay open.

Last night we visited Copley Symphony Hall in downtown San Diego to hear Joshua Bell.  I was really excited for this concert.  Taylor got me tickets for Christmas.  I loved listening to him and watching him (through my binoculars) and his incredible technique.  He was so relaxed.  I was especially impressed with the tightness of the ensemble (violin and piano).  They performed Bach, Saint-Saëns, Schumann, and Ravel Sonatas.  It was really amazing how together they were, especially with the super fast octave runs in the piano, doubled by the violin in the Saint-Saëns.  I have no idea how they did it, but I was blown away.  The concert was great, but I was somehow let down.  Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Bell played flawlessly, but somehow I expected something more.  Maybe it was due to our seats, but some of the really intricate parts were kind of lost behind the piano.  I felt like I didn’t quite hear everything I wanted to.  Maybe I just had a bad seat.  Maybe the acoustics in the hall could be better.  (It’s kind of a funny building.  You would never know it was a symphony hall from the outside of the building.  It just looks like a high rise building.)  Or maybe I was just so spoiled by Yo-Yo Ma last year, that nothing will ever live up to that experience.  No matter what it was, I still had a good time and definitely enjoyed the concert.

In the last couple of days, Ashton has started waving.  He loves to watch himself in the mirror.  As soon as he sees himself, he starts waving, then gets a huge grin on his face.  Not only does he wave, but he also says “bye-bye!”  It sounds more like “ba-ba,” but I really think he knows what he’s saying.  Or at least he knows that when you wave, you say, “bye-bye.”  My baby is growing up so fast!

I took London to get her hair cut at a salon yesterday.  I chose a kids salon and read some online reviews, just to make sure that’s what I wanted to do.  There was one bad review, but the good outweighed the bad, so I decided to go ahead and book an appointment.  When I called, I asked if there was somebody who does especially well cutting curly hair.  “We all know how to cut curly hair,” was the response I got.  Yes, I understand that, but I’m sure there are some that are just better at it.  I shrugged it off and set up the appointment.  When I walked in and signed in, I was kind of surprised at how dirty and cheesy the place looked.  It is for kids, but it looked like a Supercuts with pictures on the walls especially for kids and dresses for sale.  There wasn’t really anything special about the place at all.  I should have followed my instinct and left then, but I didn’t.  I signed in and waited a few minutes before it was our turn.

When it was our turn, they looked at me like I hadn’t signed in and were confused as to who I was.  They finally figured it out and London sat down, where they threw a cloak around her to keep the hair off.  The stylist didn’t even cover her completely and proceeded to spray her curly hair with a spray bottle and comb it out.  Luckily for London, I had washed her hair that morning because it wasn’t as tangled as it normally is.  The stylist didn’t even try to be gentle while combing her hair.  London was super nervous and the stylist didn’t do anything to make her feel more comfortable.  I stood there holding her hand the whole time.  Oh, and I noticed hair still on the floor from the last client that hadn’t been swept up.  It wasn’t just a little bit of hair that was missed in the sweeping, the sweeping had not been done.  Gross.

Now for the cut.  I asked her to take 3 inches off, and give it some layers.  When she started cutting, she just cut straight across the bottom.  I noticed that London’s part wasn’t straight and brought that to the attention of the stylist.  Instead of fixing it, she argued with me about how that’s the way her hair naturally falls.  I had to explain to her that when I do her hair, I part it straight.  It just happened to not be straight today.  I don’t care if that’s the way it naturally falls, it should be straight!  When she was finished, I asked her to put more layers in.  She argued with me on that point, too, telling me that if she cut more layers, she would cut all the curls off!  By this time, I was really mad.  I know my daughter’s hair.  The curls would not be cut off.  The whole point of the cut was to make it more curly!  The length was weighing it down.  I finally stopped arguing, paid the lady and left.  I couldn’t tell what her hair would look like because the lady didn’t style it, or put any product in it (besides a little hairspray to hold the glitter she put on her head).  Does she not know that combing curly hair and not putting product in it makes it frizzy?!  I did her hair today and it just looked okay.  I’m definitely going to cut more layers myself.  Since the top is longer and more weighed down, it’s less curly than the underside, which makes it all look the same length right now, even with the miniscule amount of layers the “professional” added.  I won’t be going there again.  Ever.

We’re all alone again.  We’ve been hosting my grandma (my dad’s mom) here for the last week.  It has been so nice to have her.  After we moved to California from Alberta (when I was eight) I didn’t get to see her all that often.  We did the best we could to keep in touch, but there’s not a whole lot you can do when it’s a 2-day drive to see someone.  We haven’t seen her for quite some time now so it was fun to spend so much time with her.  My kids really enjoyed her and she will be missed.  She just left tonight with my parents and my other grandma.

It’s been a long weekend.  My aunt got married yesterday so we’ve spent time with a lot of family.

It’s been great!  My parents drove down with my grandma (my mom’s mom).  We met them at the temple for the wedding yesterday.  London had a great time with her second cousins.  They’re some of her best friends.  They found a caterpillar that they thought was so cool while everybody was in the temple.

After the temple, we took another trip to the Mormon Battalion museum.  This time we took along both of my grandmas, as well as my parents.  It was a hit.  Then we met Anneka and LuAnn for dinner.  We rode the trolley back home and thankfully both kids fell asleep.  It was a long day for them.

We had a big gathering at out house today and hosted dinner for everybody.  London had a great time.  She can’t get enough of her second cousins.  We’re so glad we live close enough to them to play often.  It was pretty wild here at our place with kids running around everywhere.  We had a good time visiting with grandmas and aunts and cousins.  It’s always fun to get together.  I love that I have a house big enough to have people over now.  We had a good time.  But all good things must come to an end and I’m glad to be back to normal again.  I love having visitors, but I’m also glad to have my house back to myself.  Oh, and valentines day?  We’ll celebrate that tomorrow.  I’m exhausted.

You might remember that my grandma’s here visiting for the week.  She has taught me a few things in her stay so far, one of which is these pinwheel cookies.

I used my own simple but really yummy sugar cookie recipe.  I may or may not have shared that with you in the past.  It’s just 1 cup of butter, 1 cup (I think) of sugar, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1 teaspoon of salt, 3/4 of a teaspoon of baking powder and 3 1/2 cups of flour.  Bake at 400° for 7 minutes.  That’s just off the top of my head but I’m pretty sure that’s it.  Anyway, it’s yummy because they’re soft and delicious.  I’m not normally a huge fan of sugar cookies, but these are really good.

Okay, back to the pinwheel cookies.  After mixing the dough, we divide it in half.  Since we were making valentine cookies, we made one half red (using red food coloring), and left the other half white.  We then rolled out the two separate colors on wax paper and chilled them for a bit.  Later we took them out of the refrigerator and set one on top of the other and rolled them up lengthwise.  We then chilled them a little longer (which isn’t totally necessary) and cut them into 1/4 inch slices and placed them on the cookie sheets.

Then I shaped them a bit to look like hearts.  I think they turned out really cute and it was definitely easier than dealing with cookie cutters.  We’ll for sure be doing this again!

I fit 90 cookies in my cookie jar. I'm pretty sure that's NEVER happened before.

We’ve been really busy lately. I guess I could probably say that at any time in my life and it would be relevant, but I feel it more so now. We had a small housewarming party on Saturday for just a few friends and right after that was over, I headed out to the airport to pick up my grandma who’s visiting from Alberta. We don’t see her often because she lives so far away, so we’re really excited to have her for a week. Because of these two things, we have really wanted to finish up on our projects with our new home. I am blessed to have a husband who’s a hard worker. He’s been working like crazy to get things done. He goes to work every day and comes home just to do manual labor for the rest of the day. Today he finished the baseboards. They look really good. I still have pictures to hang and decorating to do, but for the most part, we’re done, at least with the worst of it. It’s nice to see such a beautiful finished product. I’ll post pictures one of these days. I lost the charger for my camera battery, so once my new one comes in the mail, I’ll take lots of pictures to show off.
As I mentioned before, my grandma is visiting. It’s fun to have her around. She keeps the kids entertained, which is always a nice thing. London always has someone to chat with or sing to or play games with or read books with. Tonight we put the kids to bed and then Taylor and I were able to go out and run some errands all alone. It was great! I can’t believe how much easier it is to get things done when you’re not toting two kids along. And now for a funny story. Yesterday, my grandma told London that she had to go wash her face. When she came back, London said, “Grandma, you forgot to wash the wrinkles off!” That girl is hilarious.

I can’t remember the last time (if ever) I have done one of these so I thought I would, just for fun today.
A-Age: 31
B-Bed size: Queen
C- Chore you hate: dishes
D- Dog’s name: I’m thinking we won’t have pets. Ever. But my dog’s name as a child was Sasha.
E- Essential start your day item: getting out of bed. That’s the hard part
F- Favorite color: Green, sometimes Blue
G- Gold or silver: Silver
H- Height: 5’3”
I- I am: tired
J- Job: Wife, Mother, Cook, house keeper, Preschool Volunteer (wow, I didn’t have to change any of Christina’s answers!)
K- Kids: 2, a girl and a boy
L- Living arrangements: newly renovated town home with my husband and two adorable children
M- Mom’s name: Marilyn
N- Nickname: Kierst
O- Overnight hospital stay other than birth: None for me, but I stayed with London when she had her cleft palate repaired.
P- Pet peeve: I have a lot so I won’t even start.
Q- Quote from a movie: “Spit spot.” –Mary Poppins
R- Right or left handed: Right
S- Siblings: 2 brothers and 2 brothers in law, and 2 sisters and 2 sisters in law
T- Time you wake up: 6 if I want to exercise, but later if I don’t.
U- Unique thing about your car: My daughter named it Commancho
V- Vegetable you hate: mushrooms and olives
W- Ways you run late: getting kids ready
X- X-rays you’ve had: wrist
Y- Yummy food you make: cookies
Z- Zoo favorite: San Diego
Don’t worry, I won’t tag any of you.