Baseball Tournament in Olive Branch

Emmett's baseball team had a tournament in Olive Branch, Mississippi. His team ended up winning second place. We took a break and had some dinner at Domino's. Josh is on an interview in Philadelphia, so he missed it all.

We are proud of our little catcher.

Josh is 32!

We celebrated Josh's birthday the day after his trip to Denver for an interview. He knew that he was going to have to work late, so we celebrated in the morning before he went to work. The kids were excited to have cheesecake right after breakfast. I made the vanilla mousse cheesecake that is such a favorite. We bought Josh new pajama pants and a new swimsuit.

Tucker Talking

Tucker cracks me up all the time. I don't know if it is his voice or the way he says things or what. I'm sure I'm enamored just because he is mine. He probably isn't funny to anybody else. I thought this was a great one though...while passing the local elementary school he said, "I see a shool bus. A hello shool bus."

On Motherhood

I found an old journal from when Emmett was a little baby and it had this little gem:

"Emmett has grown and changed so much since we moved. He has learned how to crawl, he pulls up to the furniture, he has five teeth broken through the gums and his hair is much thicker but is still very blonde. He really is my life and I love it. I never wondered about if I would love being a mother, but I love it more than I could ever have imagined." -September 1, 2007

Yep, still do. Still do.

Little Blips

Cora and Melynn had their doctor's appointments this week. Cora weighed in at 13 lbs. 4 oz. and is 23" long. She is cute and pudgy. Melynn weighed in at 38 lbs. but the nurse accidentally put down 48 lbs. so the growth chart looked all funny. The doctor caught the error when he asked me if she had a big growth spurt, and I said yes, she has shot up quite a bit. Then he looked at her, and said, "She isn't 48 pounds." It was a funny error and once he fixed it her growth curve was back on 25% for weight and he said, "Still thin."  

We got new sister missionaries and they stopped by this afternoon. I was in the middle of making brownies and when I finished I let Emmett lick the wire whisk. He managed to drop some brownie batter on the floor, and I told him to clean it up. He dropped right down and started licking the spill right in front of our new missionaries. I was so embarrassed.

Easter 2015 part 2

Blending our Easter weekend with General conference was a lot of fun. The kids had a blast dying Easter eggs, and eating as much candy as a kid from their Easter baskets. Our Easter bunny comes on Saturday so that Sunday can be reserved for more spiritual celebrations. That meant that the kids have lots of candy to eat during general conference.

General conference was awesome this year. I particularly loved the comment that Elder Ballard made about video games and how we shouldn't be wasting our time with them. That was in the priesthood session.

The kids dyed their Easter eggs Saturday morning before the first session, and then we had an Easter egg hunt after the second session. 

Josh left Sunday morning for his interview in Denver so we had to have Easter without him. He came home really late Monday night and Tuesday was his birthday, so I'll have to blog about that later.

On Sunday morning, I was going to make bunny pancakes but when I was making the batter I messed up and started making waffle batter instead. I improvised and made strawberries and cream waffles and they were fantastic.

This is my first time trying to blog from my new smart phone so I'm anxious to see what it looks like. I have a lot to learn but I'm really liking the dictate function because it's much faster than typing with one finger.

Easter 2015

I love Easter. I love teaching my kids about the Savior and helping them understand that Easter can be fun with baskets and egg dying and egg hunts, but that the real purpose of celebrating is because of Jesus. We try to separate the secular from the spiritual at our house and so the Easter Bunny comes on Saturday. It was perfect for me because that provided conference treats. I didn't bake anything or buy anything for the kids. We wanted to dye eggs on Friday night but we had a non-compliant child during school that day and so it was postponed to Saturday morning. That bumped the egg hunt to dinnertime instead of the morning, but it all worked out fine. Sunday remained a day to listen to the Prophet and to eat whatever was left of their candy. It was so relaxed and wonderful. We missed Josh who was traveling to Denver for his interview. I just have to say that I loved that our Primary activity was not an egg hunt this year, but instead they focused on the spiritual side and made family home evening kits (the resurrection eggs lesson) and resurrection rolls. It was a week ago and the kids made these cute bunny headbands. Later that day I took Tucker to a birthday party at the fire station.

I got a smart phone over the weekend so I'm going to try to blog with it using the other Easter pictures I took. But for now, here is what I have.

Pink and Squishy

The Young Women's president has coined the perfect term to describe Cora. She's "pink and squishy." We love her rolls and her kissable cheeks. She is smiley and happy and adorable. And she is oh so good. We are going to move her into Melynn's room this weekend. Here are some pictures we have of her and a funny video of us trying to get her to roll over. She has rolled from front to back but only a few times.

Melynn's 6th Birthday!

'Tis our season for birthdays and Melynn's will outshine them all this year. She had some very specific requests (more like demands) that we tried to fill. First, she wanted breakfast in bed. She has seen pictures of her friends on their blog of breakfast in bed as a birthday tradition and wanted that too. She wanted french toast and one flat egg. I think she told me what she wanted to eat at least 3 weeks in advance. I wrote it on my calendar. Also, she wanted her dad to bring her balloons. He did that. She wanted a purple cake with purple frosting. Check, check. I think we did a pretty good job keeping her happy...okay, we spoiled her, but it was really fun.

My visiting teachers came that day and even brought her a present! She loved it.

The perks of being the little one: licking the spatula

The hardest part was waiting for Josh to come home from work so she could open her presents. She got a really special one from both sets of grandparents: her very own scriptures. She has been jealous of Emmett's for about two years now. Now she has her own and it has been much better during scripture reading time.

 Melynn is an artist at heart...very right brained I think. She loved her new easel. I hit the jackpot at Ikea when I saw this and got it for her.

She even got a custom-made scripture tote from her grandma Linda to carry around her new treasures.

Being a sibling on a birthday is not as fun as licking the spatula. He was not happy during present opening.

Another one of her adopted grandmas gave her this sweet pink dress and sweater. Cora has a hand-me-down dress almost exactly like it and they both wore them to church the following Sunday. But...I didn't take a picture. Oops.

My 33rd Birthday!

My birthday fell on Saturday this year and we spent half the day at the district pine wood derby watching Emmett's car lose over and over. It wasn't exactly the funnest event I've ever been to. It was supposed to start at 9. We arrived a few minutes early, as usual, and so when the races started closer to 10:30 we were all starting to get short-tempered. By the time things ended closer to 12:30 I had just about had it for the day. Emmett had fun. He was probably the only one that enjoyed it.

That is totally not a flattering picture, but it was better than the others, believe it or not. Josh bought me a book and I'm really excited to read it. I just need to get caught up with my book club and then I can enjoy it. It is the final book in The Giver series.

Later that day Josh and I went on a date to dinner and the movies. So fun! We saw Cinderella and I loved it. It was clean and magical and romantic and lovely. I wish more movies were produced that were clean and magical and romantic and lovely. It made my birthday much better and I'm glad we went out. We need to go on more dates.