Weekly Recap

Trying to get caught up on all things Murdock family would take some time, so I'll do my best to do a quick recap of this year so far!  First and foremost- Braedon matched!  What a wild ride this medical school journey has been.  While we're definitely sad that we aren't headed back to Utah to be around our family, we are happy to be staying here in D.C. where we have so many wonderful friends who love us as well!  It's pretty crazy to think that we will be experts in all things D.C. by the end of this road.  And really, who knows where we will end up??  

We celebrated match day by going to Zatinya for restaurant week!  It was our first time participating in restaurant week and we will definitely make it a regular thing from here on out!  Twice a year a huge handful of restaurants pick a fixed menu/ discounted pricing so that you get to try LOTS of food for a decent price.  We've already got Filomena on our list for August.  Match-day felt like a dream.  We truly didn't sleep much the night before and then the shock of it all wore off by dinnertime.  We were exhausted!  We spent some time driving around Arlington to decide if we'd like to move there and were heartbroken when Tally asked if we could find a house closer to Utah.  His love for his family runs deep!  

Overall though, we do feel like we just must be meant to be here in Virginia.  Although we might not see the reasons right away, and we can speculate all we want, we just have to trust that we're not always the ones in charge ;).  

And now, for a photo dump of the last month or so! 

Capturing a rare moment of Quinn falling asleep on me.  She usually reserves this for Dad!

The girls at their well check-ups.  Both of them are in the 90th percentile for height!  

Tally truly is the sweetest big brother.  He loves to take care of Livvy by getting her the binky, singing to her, holding her, and feeding her.  He plays so well with Quinn the majority of the time, and talks to her so sweetly!  He is always happy to hold her hand in the busy halls at church, or in the parking lot/ crossing the street.  Or even just randomly when we are out and about!  I caught an unprompted moment of him marching around the Jefferson Memorial like a soldier while holding her little hand!  She was so proud to be paraded around by him.  

"Is this a good hair day, or a bad hair day?"

Llama Llama and Fancy Nancy books are Quinn's absolute favorite!  

BEST BUDS

This was taken after walking the 3.5 miles from Gravelly Point to the Jefferson memorial with Laura Webb and all three of her kids.  We were amazed at how well the boys did on their scooters!  Tally pooped out at the end though and hitched a ride.  

Teething has begun!  Liv is my first real binky baby.  She loves that thing!

More of us snuggling on the couch.  I see a theme for January.  Or maybe just a general theme for us haha. 

This picture cracks me up.  Just another day in paradise!  Tally had my phone and snapped about 100 pictures of me hanging up laundry while holding a clingy Liv.  

After church one Sunday Tally piled all of the "stuffies" on top of Quinn.  She happily obliged and felt special the entire time.  

We haven't seen much of Braedon these days because he's working some crazy hours.  We sure miss him though and the kids love to leave him voicemails.  

Ending on a sad note here with Quinn's first ear infection.  But- another hilarious story goes with it.  I had agreed to host the missionary zone conference (about 100 missionaries) with my friend who also has three young kids.  She quickly jumped in when she found out Quinn had an ear infection and  picked up Tally from preschool so I could head to the instacare with the girls.  While I was sitting waiting to see the doctor it dawned on me at 5:30 pm that the zone conference luncheon was THE NEXT DAY and we hadn't made any plans!!!  I sent her a text and we got to work.  We ended up feeding the missionaries pizza and salad and made it as simple as possible.  Honestly, neither of us felt any guilt that we didn't put on a beautiful lunch complete with homemade food and decorations.  We did our best with the stage of life we are in!  And the boys (Tally and Dylan) thought it was so cool that they got to see all the missionaries and eat pizza with them.  Definitely a win!  What I loved most was that the mission president's wife noticed we were far outnumbered with our kids with us while we were getting the lunch ready.  She made sure to have the missionaries set up and take down so that we could get in and out of there as quick as possible.  We all worked together to make it happen!  And guess what? Everyone got fed!  

Until next week!