An Unexpected Pregnancy

First off, I hope that no one clicked on here thinking this post was about me...because it's not. According to David, this particular pregnancy is a disaster of epic proportions! Savannah and I are extremely excited though, because


our little Princess went and got herself in the family way. We had put off having her fixed because of David's layoff and the cost of the procedure. A couple weeks ago, after David brought the subject up of taking her in, I went out to feed the cats, took one look at Princess, and told David, "Too late." I have never seen David so angry and, after living with me for almost 15 years, that's saying a lot! We can't even bring it up to him without his mouth getting all tight and his eyes narrowing.
Savannah, on the other hand, is beside herself with joy. She has convinced herself that she will be keeping several of the kittens and has written out a list of fabulous kittie names. I am trying to prepare her for the likely event that Princess will have these babies in the woods and we might not be lucky enough to ever see them. This weekend Savannah and I are going to prepare a box for her in hopes that when her time comes, which should be soon, she will stick around but we'll just have to wait and see.
One of our favorite things to do is put our hands on Princess's tummy and feel those little babies moving around in there.

Photography

Friday night Savannah and I hosted our Keepers group's April meeting on photography. I love to take pictures, lots of pictures, but I am nowhere near being an expert on the subject. I struggled with what to do for the evening's activities so I basically just took the girls outside and let them take pictures! We discussed different lighting, angles, poses, etc. and I think the girls had fun. Savannah was so busy using my camera to take her pictures that I didn't get any of the girls except for one. I decided it would be fun to try some trick photography and the result was this:

The girls got a big kick out of it when they saw how they had shrunk small enough for Savannah to hold them in her hand. Friday night's meeting was a sad one because we are saying goodbye to two of our members, Keira and Emmeline, who are moving to Australia. Kaia had made them a scrapbook filled with pictures from all our Keepers meetings and as the girls gathered around to look at them, the moms all shed some tears. We will miss those sweet girls and their mom Angela - we have definitely had some good times with them.

Nature Field Trip

Friday morning Xander and I headed off to a local nature center for his very last preschool field trip. First stop? The nature center itself to look at all the stuffed animals, dried bugs, and live turtles and snakes.

One of the guys who works there talked to the kids about different animals and then brought out a live snake for the kids to look at as well as pet.


The second stop was the nearby pond to poke around in the muck and mud to see what kinds of critters the kids could pull out. Xander really loved the boots!


The toad tadpole was a huge hit with all the kids!

And Xander pulled out a ton of little snails.

After the pond we headed off for a little hike to look at beaver dams, skunk cabbage (which totally reeked!), and trees with woodpecker holes. It was such a beautiful day, perfect weather to spend a morning appreciating nature.

Happy Birthday, Noah!

Three years ago Noah Calvin joined our family and life has been extremely entertaining since then.

3 things I love about my Noah:

• his smile


• his nose kisses


• how full of life he is
  
  

Some of Noah's favorites at age 3:

• His favorite things to eat are candy, chocolate milk, chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, pretzels, cheese, and PIZZA!


• His favorite movie is anything with Scooby Doo in it


• He loves "Papa Bear" books as he likes to call the Berenstein Bears books


• His favorite toys are Batman and Robin and the villains, Star Wars, and his Pup-Pup and Kitty stuffed animals


• He absolutely loves animals; he's always trying to pet and hold our cats and enjoys getting their food for them.


• He loves to throw and catch any ball


• He loves to color


• He is left-handed though he'll occasionally use his right hand


• He loves to play with Savannah and Xander though he can play by himself really well
  

• His favorite person in the whole world: his Uncle Bryan
  

• He's always such an angel - look at him folding his arms so nicely to say a prayer...
  

• NOT! This kid has one whollop of a temper. The above picture is actually a shot of his infamous "hang-dog" look. Below is a shot of his face, a perfect display of what Noah can be like.
  

• He loves to sing and dance and has always had a little boogie to his step
  
• I have always had a problem with him being a runner - he constantly runs away from me when we are out in public. Needless to say, I do NOT find this practice of his amusing and it has caused some great anxiety in my life. He is doing much better though as he gets older.
• He is my questioner, my only child who asks "Why?" all the time
• He loves to take showers and will run around the house afterwards and yell, "I naked! I naked!"
• His nicknames are Nose and No-No, the latter being what he prefers. If one of us says to him, "Noah, you are so cute" he replies, "I not cute! I N0-No!"
• His prayers contain such sentences as "Close your eyes!" and "Bow your head!" as he points to the accused. And if he thinks someone else has been praying too long, he starts whispering, "In the name of Jesus Christ", just as a helpful hint that it's time to end.
• He dresses himself each morning and although most of the time he does a great job picking out his outfits, sometimes he's a little off...

• He loves to borrow Xander's clothes so oftentimes he's drowning in what he's wearing
• He LOVES to dress up!
  

• He is a complete ham and loves to be the center of attention
• His good friends are Abby, Jasmine, and Solomon
• He frustrates me but he also makes me laugh
  

Saturday morning Noah woke up to find the traditional balloon bouquet tied to his bedpost. In keeping with his personality, Noah decided that he did not like the Spongebob balloon and refused to take a picture until I had removed the offensive balloon.

Xander was going to a birthday party for a friend at Chuck E. Cheese so we decided to all go since Noah loves playing there as well. Only for a special treat on a birthday am I willing to go to that insane place.


Saturday evening we had a family celebration that included opening presents as well as eating yummy cake and ice cream. Savannah and Xander had wrapped up several of their own possessions to give to Noah as gifts. It was so funny how Noah would unwrap one of their gifts and shout, "Savannah's parrot!" or "Xander's guy!" Although we did have a few problems with Xander later that evening when he decided he wanted some of those gifts back, I thought it was sweet how Savannah and Xander wanted to give something to their little brother.

By far the favorite present of the night was the Joker Fun House; Noah just can't get enough of the whole Batman thing.

Happy 3rd Birthday, cute little No-No!

He's Amused

Ahhh, President Obama is "amused" by these little rallies that have been taking place the past few days. He thinks we should be saying thank you rather than protesting. Well, Mr. Obama, you arrogant bleep-bleep-bleep, I would write more of a response but I'm afraid that the bleeps would outweigh anything else. So, all I can say is the majority of the American people are not "amused" by you and I don't think you'll find all of this "amusing" come November!

Spring Break Highlights

Although our original plans for spring break ending up changing, much to our disappointment, the kids and I still tried to make our spring break fun. Here are a few highlights:

• General Conference. Definitely one of my favorite weekends of the year and one of the days falling on Easter Sunday made it even better. All of the sessions were absolutely wonderful but Saturday afternoon was probably my favorite. I truly love listening to the words of our prophet, apostles, and other leaders - always so uplifting!

• Xander's favorite was visiting the Easter Bunny!
  
  

• The kids loved spending time at the various parks and playgrounds that we went to. One day we headed over to the library for a picnic lunch and to check out the turtles that reside at the pond nearby.
  

Afterwards we headed into the library and loaded up on lots of great books for me and the kids. I would highly recommend The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; what a great book!

• The kids loved hanging out with all their friends.
  

• Definitely one of the highlights of spring break was the absolutely gorgeous weather! We had to take advantage of all that beautiful sunshine!
  

He Is Risen!

“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre. …

“And they found the stone rolled away. …

“… They entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.

“… As they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

“And … said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?”

“He is not here: for he is risen.” (Luke 24:2-6)

This is the clarion call of Christendom. The reality of the Resurrection provides to one and all the peace that surpasses understanding. 11 It comforts those whose loved ones lie in Flanders fields or who perished in the depths of the sea or rest in tiny Santa Clara or peaceful Heber Valley. It is a universal truth.

As the least of His disciples, I declare my personal witness that death has been conquered, victory over the tomb has been won. May the words made sacred by Him who fulfilled them become actual knowledge to all. Remember them. Cherish them. Honor them. He is risen.
President Thomas S. Monson

(The print is He Is Not Here by Walter Rane)

Happy Easter, everyone!

Easter Bunny Fun

Upon hearing from his classmates that the Easter Bunny could be found at the mall, Xander started bugging me about going for a visit. So on Friday, to kick off the kids' spring break, we headed to the mall to see the big bunny. The whole way over we told Noah all about the Easter Bunny and how fun it would be to sit on his lap and talk to him. Noah seemed excited all the way up until he actually had to be held by him...and then it was a no go. I had to promise him some M&M's just to get him to stand in front of the Easter Bunny. What a grouch!

Later on we decorated our tree out front with Easter eggs. The kids love our beautiful Easter Egg Tree.


Friday night was the traditional dyeing of the Easter eggs in preparation for the Easter Bunny's visit.


Xander always makes a "dragon" egg.

In our house Saturday is Easter Bunny Day and the kids were excited to see that he had not forgotten them. They found their baskets filled with candy and a special toy.

After enjoying the contents of their baskets for a little bit, the kids went on an Easter egg hunt.


Due to the fabulous weather we've been having this past week the hunt extended outside!

Passover

On Thursday night we celebrated Passover just as our Savior did the last Thursday of His mortal life. I turned to one of my wonderful friends this year for some helpful hints and advice. (Last year was fun but this year I wanted to step it up a notch!) Catherine lent me her file filled with ideas, activities, recipes, talks, coloring pages, etc. which helped tremendously. The kids are still lacking a bit of the attention span to do some of the activities I wanted to do so I decided to keep it short and simple.
I hung some pictures of our Savior and the Last Supper around the room so the kids could visualize what the room and men would have looked like. David also read about the Last Supper from the scriptures.

We know that the Passover meal of the Last Supper included at least three symbolic foods and a drink which I had gathered together so the kids could sample them. We talked about each one and what it symbolized. I had attempted to make some unleavened bread and, even though I was a tad disappointed in how it turned out, the kids actually seemed to like it. We also had grape juice, haroset, and bitter herbs. I'm not a huge fan of lamb so we hung up a picture of one as a replacement.

The bitter herbs were a bit too "bitter" for Noah...he had to take a huge swig of his grape juice to get over the taste! I wish I could have had the camera ready for his face while tasting - it was priceless!

After sampling the symbolic foods, we all feasted on foods that Jesus and his Apostles might have eaten. We had fish, rice, olives, cheeses, and even some figs and dates (though no one seemed real fond of those). We also talked about the Garden of Gethsemane and the Atonement, David and I bearing our testimonies of the Savior and his great love for each of us. It was a wonderful evening and I hope that the kids remember not only sitting on the floor eating dinner but the things we talked about.