Time to Move On!!

My sidebar says my baby is one day old.
My body says differently.
I have never been overdue before.
I am the first female in my family to be overdue.
Kylie, I hope I am not starting a trend here.

Deal with it!

Last week I signed up to sew 10 receiving blankets for Humanitarian Aid. As I attempted to get them done, my sewing machine completely freaked out on me and would not sew. This is not uncommon for this particular machine. It does it everything I try to sew anything. It makes me never ever want to sew. But then I forget how my machine makes me want to say bad words and I try again.
This time, there was no fixing that Randy or I could do to solve the problem. I even recently paid $60 to have the dang thing serviced! I was not a happy woman. I gave up.

Grace came over to me, put her little hand on my knee, looked me right in the eye and said, "You signed up to do these blankets and now you are just going to have to deal with it."

That girl! Children are so very humbling. I spent all night trying to figure out how I was going to "deal with it." I came up with nothing.

Then, to my surprise, Randy dealt with it. He brought me home a new machine the next day. Now I have no excuses not to "deal with it." I'd better get those blankets done before this new baby gets here.

Cutest picture ever!

Aren't these the cutest pictures ever?!! They were taken at Brad and Aston's wedding. I love them.

Happy Mother's Day!

Instead of breakfast in bed, Randy woke me up with this picture. Congratulations Ron and Andrea! I guess it's fair that you got yours first, but I wouldn't have minded getting a baby for Mother's Day too. (Madeline Rose was born yesterday morning - May 9th. She is two weeks early! Maybe her cousin will follow suit. That would be okay by me!)

Randy did make breakfast and when I came down to the table to eat I found very unexpected presents. I love a nice surprise. He had gotten me daisies and a terracotta flower pot that I had told him I wanted. My plan is not to use the pot for flowers but to use it to roast a chicken in. It's my latest idea. I read about it in Alton Brown's book I'm Just Here for the Food. I love Alton Brown's stuff. I'll have to post about it when I try it.



Robyn also had a nice surprise for me. She has been sewing lately, but she never showed me what she'd made until this morning. It was a homemade bag filled with little pillows that she had embroidered on. Made me cry. She is getting pretty good. Here are some close ups of her handiwork.



Grace also had presents for me. She made me a necklace. Unfortunately Caden broke it while I was wearing it. I need to get some stronger string. At primary, they had the kids write somethings they would do for their mothers today. Grace wrote that she would mop the floor and make cookies. When we got home, she had the floor mopped before I even got my dress changed. Then she changed and got right on those cookies. She did a great job making me some no bake cookies. They were very yummy. We recently got her tested for food allergies and found out she can't have dairy, wheat, or eggs. Luckily, with some minor modification, no bake cookies are okay for her to eat. Happy day - I wouldn't want to have to live without cookies. (But if I had to choose, I'd take Grace over cookies.) After dinner she finished sewing this pillow for me. It will be perfect for supporting my neck on our next car trip.


Colin and Caden have been fairly good boys. Colin wrote on his Primary list that he would program in PHP. He's been doing it since he got home. It's not exactly what I might have chosen for him to do for me for Mother's day, but at least he's happy. I do like happy children.
Caden drew me a picture this morning. The picture turned out great. Too bad he didn't stop there - he also decorated the wall and the electrical outlet with his marker. In case anyone is interested - dry erase marker does come off of electrical outlets but it doesn't come off walls. It's a good thing he is cute. Both my boys have those big brown eyes that make me melt - that's why they get away with everything.


This next picture is for my own dear mother. She had a few boys with big brown eyes that got away with a lot too. This boy reminds me a lot of one of them.

Happy May!

It's May! Hooray! I am having a baby in May. I thought it would never ever get here and, yet, here it is. Yay!
I'd better get busy. I am not even close to ready for a new baby.

Zoo Pictures

Here are some pictures from the last week's zoo trip.

Kid train in the monkey slide.


All 11 cousins on an African safari.


All 11 cousins on a komodo dragon statue.


Caden in a tortoise shell.


Grace in the monkey slide.


What do you think? Does this shirt make me look fat?

Family, Family The Center of God's Plan

It's feast or famine around here as far as family goes. This week was a feast!
We kicked off the week with Easter dinner at Aunt Shelly's house.
Then Uncle Brad and Aunt Aston came to visit and spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning with us. The kids loved it! Caden is still talking about playing ball with Uncle Brad. It was nice to get to visit with my new sister-in-law for a bit. They need to come back and stay for a lot longer though. We didn't get in nearly enough visiting with all the competition for attention.
Friday Grandpa, Uncle Darron, and Uncle James all had meetings in Boise so we got the spend the day with all the cousins.
We spent most of the day at the zoo checking out the new Africa exhibit. It is turning out really cool.
We headed back to our house to grill hamburgers for dinner. We pretty much never get to have that many Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins at our house at the same time - it was great fun! Uncle Darron taught Caden to play baseball. Caden has been practicing throwing the ball in the mitt today. It is very cute. He sure likes to play ball with his Uncles.
After dinner, we all went to the hotel they were staying at to go swimming.
This morning, Grandma and Grandpa came back to pick up Murfy dog and Grandpa took us to buy popsicles. Grandpa told Grace that she needed to work hard at eating all the popsicles so he could buy her more next time he comes. She has taken her work very seriously. That is one job that she is happy go the extra mile.
Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Shannon stopped by this afternoon for a visit. Shannon made friends with Caden by reading him all the millions of books he kept bringing her. This is very good as I am putting Jeremy and Shannon at the top of the list for who to call when this baby is ready to come.
It is so nice to have lots of family. I wish we could all get together more often. You are all welcome to come back for visits anytime. Those family members who missed all the partying - you are welcome to come for your share anytime too. We always love to have family visit.

Morse Code

As the mother of gifted and highly motivated homeschoolers, I never know what project I will find the kids doing next. This is just one example of the scenes I often encounter.



I went upstairs to put Caden to bed and upon my return I discovered Colin learning Morse Code. He used his new circuit set to build a light with a switch and then he got out all the encyclopedias to find out what each letter was in Morse Code. His method worked just fine but things got a lot tidier when I showed him that the "M" encyclopedia has a chart with ALL the letters in it.

Duck Update

In five short weeks the ducks have gone from these adorable little things that were cute enough to be allowed to follow Robyn around the kitchen to...



these gigantic things that are still very amusing but no longer cute enough to live in the kitchen.



They are almost fully feathered with their juvenile feathers. One of them quacked at me yesterday (as opposed to the usual baby peeping) so I am really hoping that means she is a girl.

It is fun to watch them, they each have very different personalities.

Declaration of Independence

I have been working on memorizing the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence this month. I wrote up those two paragraphs on two huge pieces of paper. Colin thought we should make it look more authentic (old) by burning the edges of the paper. So we did and then I hung them on the wall by the dining room table so I could read it every time we sat down to eat. It's coming...slowly. If we work together, Colin and I can almost recite both paragraphs using just the first letter of each word as clues.

Tonight after family night, Grace sat on the table and read the entire thing! Of course she needed lots of help, but she stuck with it and wouldn't quit until she'd finished. She can now read words like "government" and "usurpations". I tell you what - it is really fun to hear your four year old read "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." Pretty darn impressive.
The whole "Inspire, not Require" thing does work.