Preschool is over, on to... college?

Eden graduated from preschool this week. Here she is singing a fun song with her class (its not a great picture, I need to use our other camera for these kinds of things, but she is right in the middle of the back row).

Here are Andrew and his buddy, Kaid enjoying the show from their seats on a desk (it was standing room only when we got there 30 minutes early!)

Here is Eden receiving her 'diploma' from Miss Candy. And here she is after it was over. I also tried to get a picture of her with her friend Anna (Kaid's sister), but they were pretty much done smiling by that point. On the ride to school that morning that the two of them were so excited about the last day of preschool: that means its almost time to go to kindergarten, then first-grade, then high school (like high school musical, according to these girls), and then college (Eden insists she is going to BYU). It was just so funny how sure they were of this process beginning pretty much as soon as preschool was over.

Watch out world, here she comes!

That polar bear wants to be a sea otter!

While in Denver visiting Robin, Fred, Shaun, and Reese, we made a trip to the zoo. One of our favorite exhibits was the polar bears. (Eden and Andrew were actually talking about the polar bears before we went because they remembered the ones we saw at the Como Zoo in January.)

We happened to be there at the same time as a lot of school field trip groups and this particular polar bear was a huge hit with everyone. He wants to be a sea otter, according to Eden. He would swim over to the steps, stand up, and....















...then swim across the pool on his back. He did this over and over, we were probably at the exhibit at least 15 minutes just watching this guy (and trying to get close enough to get good pictures).

Grab Bag of Thoughts

• I've updated our picassa web albums (finally) , so there are more pictures from the last few months (see Useful Stuff list on the left), although they are still unedited and unlabeled. I don't feel like blogging any of our recent pictures, so here are some things that have been on my mind lately instead:
  

• I've been reading "Mormon Scientist: the Life and Faith of Henry Eyring" by Henry J. Eyring. It has been one of my favorite reads in a while. I tend to find something to really like in just about everybook I read (I'm pretty easy to please), I also just finished "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom, which was amazing and I also highly recommend. But, perhaps because I consider myself to have something of a "scientific mind" (whatever that means... I really like science, even chemistry, which I'm horrible at). This may sound funny, but my favorite building and favoritye place to study at BYU was the Eyring Science Center, and part of me thinks that it may have something to do with the man for whom it was named. Anyway, so far I have found the scientific parts exciting and the way he saw no contradiction between science and faith speaks so true to me. So, I'll share just one of my favorite passages so far:
  

"I should like to say that true religion was never a narrow thing. True religion concerns man and the entire universe in which he lives. It concerns his relationships with himself and his fellowmen, with his environment, and with his Creator. It is therefore limitless, and as boundless as that eternity which it teaches lies ahead of every son of God.

"....To us has come the following which we regard as a divine injunction: 'Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand; of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms.'

Here is the spirit of true religion, an honest seeking after knowledge of all things of heaven and earth."

• I saw this on another blog (she apparently got it from another blogger, so maybe you have already read it). Even though Mother's Day was last week, I still wanted to share it with everyone and tell all of you other mom's that I really do admire each of you, even though we are each so different. Thank you for being such great examples to me!
  

"I've learned this: whether you follow Attachment Parenting or Babywise, breastfeed or bottle feed, co-sleep or let your child cry herself to sleep, educate your children at home or in public school----be gracious to moms who parent differently than you.

Because someday, God might send you a child who defies every method, shatters all your pretty platitudes and exposes you as a prideful, holier-than-thou, know-it-all.

I know this because it happened to me. I had to eat humble pie before I realized there's no substitute for relying on Christ alone. Programs, babywise or otherwise, didn't make me a better mother to my children. They only inflated my pride.

Today when someone asks me, "how do you do it?" I reply, "only by the grace of God."Afterall, programs & methods do not save us. But grace does.

'Twas grace that saved a mommy like me.'"

• And finally, I saw this idea for a post (actually, I think it was a 'tag', so I'll tag anyone who wants to or needs an idea for a post) on a friend's blog quite a while ago, and it just stuck with me, so I'm finally going to do it- a picture of the contents of my purse (thanks Julie!):

That's 1 box of yogurt covered raisins, 1 package of fruit snacks, 3 cough drops, 1 eyeglasses case (with eyeglasses inside), 1 2008 planner, 2 pens, 1 RTD ticket (from our trip to Denver, to be blogged about later), 1 package of flushable wipes, 1 ponytail holder, 1 lipgloss (which I almost never wear, must be from the last date-night Scott and I had), 1 cell phone, 1 checkbook wallet, 1 mini photo album, 2 receipts, 1 bottle of hand sanitizer, 1 pull-up, 1 tape measure, 2 random little pieces of trash (I think one of them is covered up by the receipt). Whew! I must admit I am surprised and a little embarrassed at just how much stuff I carry around!

...and the bag it all came from. I was actually pretty excited to find this, my "perfect" purse on ebay a little while ago, and soon I'll be carrying a diaper bag again, oh well:

Crazy Weather

As I type this my weatherbug icon tells me its 64 degrees outside. Two days ago, we had a blizzard- a BLIZZARD in May! It dumped a bunch of snow starting Thursday night and continuing until Friday afternoon. The schools were closed, the base was closed, I-90 was closed! But that afternoon, the sun was out and the winds started to die down. Today, the only places with snow are the big piles from plowing the roads and parking lots. But, Scott and the kids finally made a decent size snowman!

Scott went out to take pictures while it was still coming down, this is our house and our street:





The pictures above are of our front door, before Scott shoveled it Friday afternoon (sorry the one from inside is sideways). The picture below is our back yard, also taken Friday afternoon. The green spot in the middle is because there were really strong winds (60 mph!) that caused major snow drifts. There was barely any snow in that spot, while other areas had 3-4 feet!

Above is the snowman the kids and Scott built, its as big as Andrew! The same nice wet snow that is so great for building snowmen also gave Scott a pretty good workout when it came to shoveling. The next picture was taken about 24 hours later...Pretty crazy weather, I'm really hoping that was the last time we'll be pulling out the snow gear until next winter!


I'm still working on getting over the-longest-cold-of-my-life (and I didn't feel like trying to fit my big belly in and out of the snow gear), so I stayed inside most of the day and put together this curtain for the kids room. Andrew helped pick out fabric- some he liked and some we thought Eden would like. I even learned how to sew button holes! It has a blackout liner behind it because the sun is starting to come up even earlier than our kids (Andrew still thinks if the sun is up, then everyone should be up), hopefully this will help.

A Little Update of Little Consequence

So, it turns out Andrew has an ear infection, and probably has had it for at least a few days now since they told me that he had some fluid in his ears over a week ago when I took him in for the pink-eye. Earlier this week he started having a temperature, mostly in the afternoons, but he always told me his ears didn't hurt. I finally decided to have a doctor friend who lives down the street come take a look because Andrew seems to be almost deaf the last day or so. Just today I let both of them go play with friends (this doctor's kids!). I'm starting to think maybe I'm too lenient on taking my kids to playgroup/church/school when they're sick. Maybe we're the one's that start some of this stuff around the neighborhood! Now that they are old enough to want to play with friends more, it's hard to decide when a cold is bad enough to keep them home or take them to the doctor. And how sick is sick enough to warrant bailing out on commitments to primary, playgroup, appointments, etc. (I tend to feel guilty about those kinds of things)????
Anyway, that's enough whining...
I really should be thankful that this is the extent of my daily concerns when there are so many people out there with much bigger daily concerns than the repercussions of the common cold.

Spring Downtime

Last week, we had some nice weather so we went to the park for Family Home Evening to play and walk along the creek. The kids were excited to get in the tree, but once they were up there, they were pretty nervous, so I took a few shots and then we headed to Culver's for frozen custard- yum!



We also recently planted seeds in pots (Andrew planted marigolds and Eden planted Zinnia). A few days ago, we started to see the very first little leaves! We still haven't decided exactly how we'll do our container vegetable garden, but I found out we have few more weeks before we should plant outside anyway.

Not a whole lot more exciting than that. We started getting sick (again) right at the same time as we got some really nice weather- sunny & 75 for a couple days! So, I tried to deny it, but it turns out both kids got pink-eye and we're all still struggling with a nice cough. So now I'm trying to just accept the fact that we need downtime and really this week is a pretty good week to be sick- not a whole lot going on, and the weather here is cooling off again. In fact, the tornado siren went off while I was typing this! So, the kids are watching TV and I'm updating the blog and then I'm planning to do some scrapbooking, and we still haven't changed out of our pajamas! Monday was about the same, on Tuesday I took the kids to the park but it really seemed to wear them out (especially Andrew) more than usual, so maybe they weren't quite ready for that. Meanwhile Scott is TDY to a conference- staying in a hotel on the beach! I just tell myself it really wouldn't be that fun when you're 7 months pregnant...

A Hedgehog, a Reader, and a Snowman

Andrew got this very cool Sonic the Hedgehog hand-me-down shirt from his cousin Bryan. He thinks Bryan is so cool and that Sonic is supercool too (he didn't even know who Sonic was until he got this shirt). When I do convince him not to wear the shirt, he always asks if he can still be Sonic and if we will still call him Sonic. He was wearing it this morning before we got ready to go to church, and he decided he would be "Sunday Sonic" when it was time to put the church clothes on. I should have taken a picture of it the last time he wore it before this picture. He had dug it out of the laundry hamper- it was stinky and dirty and even had a smear of stain-stick on it. This picture is from the day when I finally did laundry (I actually did a smaller load sooner than I normally would have done) and washed the shirt for him. Thanks Bryan (and Laura)!


Eden has been learning how to read. We've been using "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons", and she really enjoys it. Now she's about two thirds of the way through it and is reading pretty big stories. She's even starting to read words around the house and trying to spell things out with the magnets on the refrigerator. Way to go Eden! We weren't able to start her early in kindergarten this past fall (her birthday is a couple weeks past the cut off), so hopefully she's not too bored next school year.


We've had some more snow here. It seems to snow everytime I finally move the snow boots from the entry-way to the bedroom closet shelf. Since its not quite so cold, the snow stuck together a little bit better, and we were able to make a small snowman. The kids were a little disappointed at first, we thought the bottom of this snowman should have been the head of a much larger snowman, but the snowballs didn't stick together so well when we started rolling them around to make them bigger. In the end, they were happy with how it turned out. Eden wanted to stay outside longer and make a snow-family, but Andrew was ready to go back inside after this one was done.



GENERAL CONFERENCE WEEKEND

Eden's Ties and Andrew's Fingerpainting

This weekend was great! Friday Scott got to come home early because the base passed the ORI this time. Then that evening we went out to eat and the kids got to play at a friends house. Saturday morning Scott put together a Deck Box we bought to store the outside toys in and the kids cleaned-up the backyard.

We got the kids excited for General Conference by having our FHE lesson on prophets and talking about the fun things we would do this weekend. We made the layered bean dip in "The Friend" magazine before the first session (we were actually finishing it up while we watched the Solemn Assembly). Then let the kids start on their Conference Activity packets the primary handed out last week (similar to the one making the rounds in email). Eden was really excited about coloring the ties of the prophets and apostles, so she paid pretty close attention (for a five-year-old) to every session. By the end of the last session, she only had blank ties for Elder Cook (he spoke in the Priesthood Session) and President Faust (who was on the page by mistake). I bought new crayons and markers (thanks for the idea Saundra!), so even Andrew colored a lot more than he usually does. We went to a baptism between sessions on Saturday, then I stayed at the church building while Scott and the kids went home. Eden and Scott listened while Andrew took a nap. That night, Scott went to the Priesthood session and the kids and I made Snickerdoodles.

Sunday morning we had sticky buns and scrambled eggs, then got ready to go to the church building to listen to the morning session. The kids worked on their packets again (I was surprised how entertained it kept them, since their were quite a few activities for older kids), I also printed out some of the coloring pages that are in "The Friend" from lds.org. Andrew kept the older couple behind us entertained, he somehow managed to stay really quiet while he was playing handgames with the husband. Sunday afternoon we had veggies and ranch, and more bean dip while we listened to the last session. The kids also got to play with MoonSand (not less messy than playdough, by the way), and fingerpaints during that session, which kept them pretty quiet and at the table with us while we listened.

It was wonderful for all of us to be able to participate in the Solemn Assembly and sustain our new prophet, Thomas S. Monson, and a new apostle, Todd Christofferson. I hope we can keep this tradition of making Conference Weekend something the kids look forward to, so that it can become meaningful for them. We are so blessed to have a prophet today, and even more blessed to be able to listen to the inspired counsel given by him and by others who have been chosen to lead this church, in our very own homes!