Thursday, May 21, 2009

Welcome Summer!


It couldn't have been a nicer day! Last day of school excitement is in the air.

5:30 I got up and walked in the cool morning air. (Maybe the last time I wake up that early for months to come.)

10:30 Isaac played at Carter's house. Thrilling for him.

12:00 I picked up the kids after school who all got to bring a friend home. We had Frozen Pizza for lunch & then went swimming.

2:00 I got to take a nap with Isaac.

4:30 Ian & Curtis went to the temple to do baptisms.

6:00 The kids & Grandma & I had white bean chilli & ate on the porch & it started to rain! Hallelujah! It's been a very nice overcast day, maybe about 80 degrees (a welcome break from the 107's of earlier this week.) Isaac came & asked for his jacket & boots & told me it was raining on his head. Eliza & Beckie have been in their swimming suits all day. Welcome summer. We all had those icecream cones that are dipped in chocolate & nuts & the kids played on the swingset.

7:30 Now the girls are taking a warm bath in my big tub. The boys are playing dress up clothes. Isaac makes a cute evil Zurg!






2 More Stories about Josh:

The other day Josh was complaining that he needed a new toothbrush & I asked if he could wait til he went to the dentist next week. He said that his electric one had broken, for a couple weeks. I asked, "Do you mean to tell me that you haven't been brushing your teeth for weeks?"

Pretty much.

Unbelievable.

This boy has also been caught wearing the same shirt to school for like a week. (Where is his mother? and why would she not notice something like that?) When it was finally brought to my attention by his brother I asked Josh why he was wearing the same shirt. He said that he didn't have any other clean shirts in his drawer.
That's because he never bothered to unload his basket of clean laundry that somehow was just shoved away in his closet.

Gotta love 10 year olds boys because they really just don't care about those kinds of details, unlike 13 year olds boys, who really do care.

I'm also happy to report that I started feeling the baby move yesterday while I was sitting on my bed working on my RS lesson. What a wonderful & happy moment for me. I have made it to 18 weeks now & get an ultrasound a week from today. Exciting.

42 days til Mom & Dad come home. Yippee!

Loving this summer already.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

April Adventures

A cute girl named Sarah left me a comment. Not knowing who she was, I checked out her blog-- darling. She had a quote on there that I would like to steal. "Do not trust your memory, it is a net full of holes; the most beautiful prizes slip through it." George Duhamel

Love it. That is what makes me want to blog. These days are gold. I know that. Every little piece & puzzle of my life is just priceless right now. I wish I could video tape the whole thing & play it back when I am old, just for laughs. Anyway, I rarely feel that I can break away, even to record these memories, but I fear that if I don't, they will just slip away from me & I can't bear that either. So here are a few of my favorites this month.

This is our new favorite "farm" breakfast. Curt makes these whole wheat, brown sugar pancakes from fresh ground whole wheat in the vita mix blender. They are spectacular! Then the kids make a sandwhich of sorts with our fresh eggs from our chickens & either sausage or bacon (to balance out the healthiness of it) & smother it in syrup &, get this. . . ketchup!



This was our version of organic style colored easter eggs this year. We also just got a shipment of 42 new baby chicks last week, that I, yes I, had to go & pick up at the post office. They called & said, "We have birds for you." Fortunately, most of them were for our neighbors. I don't know why we are even keeping 5 when we are not even eating the 8 eggs a day we get right now. When I ask Curt why we need more he says, because in a year a chicken is going to cost $3000 & you will be glad for those eggs. Who knows, maybe so.

Isaac has his own red Cars boots, but he seems to prefer Eliza's pink Hello Kitty ones. He did pick them out. I think they really complete this army shorts/no shirt look don't you? (Not to be outdone, Jackson decides to show off his abs too.)

The Bobbsey twins have tea party on the porch. Isaac loved to pour the milk from that little pitcher, so much that his cup runneth over.

Followed by a dip in "the pool".

Isaac plays hard these days, running with "the pack" on the street. We rotate houses every couple hours. He also insists on talking on the phone to whoever you are talking to. He likes to have "spikey hair." (Should I be worried that he already cares about this?) Sometimes he likes to crash hard too. Like pregnant ladies, 3 years olds can also sleep anywhere.
It's official. We have a teenager. With a gun. Ok, an airsoft gun-- which is like a mild BB gun, but, man that thing says terrorist to me. Ian turned 13 & this is all he wanted. Great excuse for another Texas Sheet cake. :)

The next day, April 15th, Curtis & I supported our local tea parties. I went to the Gilbert one with more than 1000 people & Curtis went to the Phoenix one with maybe 10,000 people. Not gigantic, but I think that for every person that was there, there are 100 more who would like to have gone too.

Curt has been gone the past 3 weekends-- all for a good cause, I guess.

Weekend #1: He flew to Utah with 4 good friends from his firm to run in the SLC marathon. He got a personal best at 3:51 & I'm proud of him. He however is mad that he didn't get in the 3:40's due to a huge new hill they added at the end, and an upset stomach from uncooked pasta the night before. Will I support him running the St. George in October? No thanks. He tried that once, & it's miserable to train in the summer. Plus I've got other plans for October.


Week #2: He took the boys on the Fathers & Sons outing. (No pictures.) Isaac has been promised he can go next year.

Week #3: Curtis & I went to Dr. Holmes for my checkup. All looking good at week 14/15. Then he took me to America's Taco shop for lunch. Funny name, but "America" is from Mexico & she makes a great carne asada.

Then I took Curt to the airport where he flew to Seattle to attend Michael's wedding-- our oldest nephew. He married a darling 24 year old RM named Minta. I wish I could have been there. Congratulations Michael & Minta!


Sarah with Ward & Carol.

Beautiful sunny day in Seattle! Spectacular blossoms!

I love this one. Curt tells me that Ward picked up a block of cheese off the cheese platter (you were supposed to cut off a piece of cheese). He's a cheese man.

Other than that, May is now here & the countdowns are on. Primarily for my parents to get home! 64 days? No way! Also, for school to get out. 14 more days of school. Excitement is in the air!

I'm also biding my time to get past the dreaded 16 week mark. But I'm feeling good. I've been on Lovenox for about 3 weeks now. Getting used to sticking myself with a needle in the belly everyday. I've been walking 2 miles at 5:30 in the morning with Autumn & my friend Stacey. Beautiful mornings right now. As you can see, I also fall asleep anywhere. We sat down to have FHE a couple weeks ago & I was out cold. I woke up & Curtis had done the lesson & taken all the kids to the Dollar Store to pick out a prize & to Fresh & Easy to pick a dessert. Their picks were varied, from cheesecake to Dole pine-orange-strawberry juice. Great times. Great dad.

The Marvelous McCreadies

The highlight of our lives is when the McCreadie's come to visit. It's like Christmas! (But it was Easter-- close enough.) Our kids go bananas & Curt & I REJOICE. We spent 10 wonderful days with them in the beginning of April. Here are some of our fun filled memories.


We watched general conference together the first weekend. We mostly stayed awake, but Sunday afternoon found me looking a little like this....



The adults went out on Saturday night to The Keg & had a great time. On Monday the McCreadie's spent a couple hours cleaning up our boat! Those kids sure know how to work & do it without complaint. Amazing. Then, thanks to the Gwilliams we were able to get passes to the Seville Country Club pool & we swam it up for the next few days.. Sue & I were baffled by the bikini model we encountered there. (No pictures of that unfortunately-- or should I say fortunately?) They also took in a couple of games downtown.

On Thursday we left the valley & headed up to Sedona to hike our favorite West Fork Trail in Oak Creek Canyon. We were not overly ambitious that day as Curt had hurt his back again, but we spent a good long while at the "slide rock" spot. We met some nice people (also from WA) who were looking for their kids. They finally found them & after talking for 15 minutes they asked Scott to take off his sunglasses & identified him as the ER doctor who had treated their son in the hospital just a couple weeks prior. Small world.




Ian really got the concept of slide rock when he slipped and fell in the water. Here are the kids drying out on the rocks.



Pregnant women can sleep anywhere can't they?


After the hike we went to DQ-- (tradition) & then drove on to Flagstaff to spend the night at the Drury Inn. Lovely place. Scott & the kids swam. We ate dinner at Granny's Closet which was just perfect for our small group of 13. Great salad bar & we nearly had the place to ourselves. In the morning we probably had the best free hotel breakfast on the planet.



Day 2 we drove up to the Grand Canyon. So many miles of trails, so little time. Or you could say, so many tired little kids, so little strollers-- dang it! (Other than our incredible trip to Havasupai as Laurels, I had not been there since I was about Eliza's age. My favorite memory of that trip being the little bag of shiny polished rocks I got as a souvenir. And a picture of me in a pretty cool periwinkle poncho.)


I think we would make a really nice blended family if we ever decided to just move in together. 2 moms, 2 dads, 3 girls & 6 boys. The offer stands.

Isaac's favorite part of the day was riding the bus between scenic lookouts. We wondered if we could just pay the driver to keep him & Markus on the bus all day.

Markus actually fell asleep standing up on the bus. That's a sign that it's time to leave.

We made it home at 10:30 that night, after nearly hitting a huge deer outside Flagstaff. The next day we had an egg hunt in the house because it was raining. I think the rain helped Sue & Scott to feel better about leaving. Although it didn't help us much, because we still miss them every day.