"I'm 14 Years Old!"

Abby has been really excited about finally having her birthday.  It's hard for a girl to see other birthdays come and go and wait patiently for your own!  But every time we ask her how old she's going to be, she responds with a number in the teens!  I think I would like her to just be 3 for a year at least!

The girls really enjoy decorating their own cupcakes and since I can't beat the fatigue lately, I let them!  Of course that meant that not only did they sprinkle the cupcakes,

they got to eat the leftover sprinkles as well!  Somehow there were a lot of leftover sprinkles . . . 

Happy 3rd birthday!!  There's cute video of her blowing out the candles at the end of the post.

 The whole family -- Megan's mad because she asked for the cupcake with the yellow butterfly and I told her it wasn't her birthday so Abby got first pick.

After cupcakes we opened presents!  A coworker of Chopper's sent her a Harley Davidson shirt and puppy dog.

Grandma got her a Wall-E stuffed animal, a puzzle, and a robotic crab (video at the end too).

Chopper and I finally settled on a game and a Minnie Mouse vacuum.  Too bad it doesn't actually vacuum!!  But it makes a great noise and lights up so it's a 2 for 1 gift.  The girls love to run around with it and William loves to watch it!  He LOVES vacuum cleaners! 

The Harley shirt -- a little big but very cute.

It's been a lot of fun to have my mom here to celebrate with us and I'll post more later about what we've done while she's been here -- so far not too much really.  But the kids are really enjoying having her here.  Heck, I'm enjoying having her here!  I've taken 2 naps in 2 days!!!

Abby will have her 3 year old visit in the next few weeks but I thought I should also include a few things about her. 

She is incredibly active!  She also really really likes touch -- which basically translates to wanting to be held and crawling all over you if you're sedentary for more than 2 minutes.

She loves Megan and William  and pushes Megan's buttons very well but is also super sweet and shares her toys easily and plays well with others.

Abby still puts everything in her mouth and creates lots of disasters wherever she goes.  She loves to eat and eat and her favorite thing is to drag a chair over to the counter and help herself to apples.

She potty-trained in 1 day.  Not kidding.  We had tried very randomly before where she had accidents but when I seriously put her in underwear and got out the little potty she did fantastic.  She's had maybe 2 accidents is all.  She's already starting to try out the regular toilet (with potty seat) and tried it once without but fell in.  It was awesome!  She started screaming and I kind've ignored her because she and Megan scream a lot.  The second time she screamed I went to see what was wrong and she was taco-ed up with her bum in the toilet.  I was a better mother than I wanted to be and resisted the urge to run and get the camera before helping her out.

She runs everywhere.  I really don't think it's possible for her to walk.  She also has 2 volumes.  Normal, and very very loud.  That tends to be an issue at church.

She is brave (well fearless really), loyal, and long-winded.  She says the longest prayers at meals!  But they have a definite beginning and end and if you interrupt to direct her, she gets really mad.

She loves Wall-E, Cars, and My Little Pony.

She sings A LOT of holds the hymnbook in church and "sings" along.

She is so ready for Sunbeams and preschool but still has a while to wait!

What else?  Still tiny.  I'll be interested to see what her official measurements are.

And the videos:

Chastened

There's a possibility that this may be a little too personal but it's actually an experience that I want my children to know that I had someday when they're having their own struggles.  And since the following of this blog is mainly family and I'm pretty sure a small number of people, I'm ok with posting this.  So here goes.

Today my counselors and I gave talks in sacrament meeting because of the commemoration of the organization of the Relief Society.  My least favorite thing about giving talks is that I analyze it afterwards.  Chopper says I need to stop and forget about it -- everyone else has!!  In actuality, the talks went really well  and I was surprised to learn from my own.  How conceited does that sound?

So my topic was the third of the purposes of Relief Society: strengthen home and family.  I knew mostly what I wanted to say and did a lot of reading and found some great material: inspiring quotations, things that we need to do to strengthen home and family, etc.  But it wasn't new information to me and it wasn't earth shattering.  I know that we need to improve on family prayer and scripture study.  

But I did learn something.  I tend to get frustrated with Chopper (mad sometimes) because I feel like (whether it's true or not -- sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't) I'm the one doing it all.  Reminding us to read scriptures and say prayers and organizing family home evening.  And I can get a little resentful of that (which is not right).  I don't even know now what I read specifically but as I did, I was filled with the realization, chastisement really, that that is MY job.  I'm the mom.  I'm responsible for the nurturing and teaching of our children.  Sure Chopper is my partner in this but his primary role is in providing and protecting our family.  And I realized that when I get mad about who's doing what, it's the kids that are suffering because of the lack of doing anything!  And I need to be a better mother and DO IT or delegate specific tasks to Chopper at that moment rather than expect him to take it all on and then be angry when he doesn't.

Funny how the Lord uses simple things to teach us the lessons we need huh?

Spencer W. Kimball said, "To be a righteous woman during the winding up scenes of this earth, before the second coming of our Savior, is an especially NOBLE calling. . . . She has been placed here to help to ENRICH, to PROTECT, and to GUARD the home--which is society's basic and most noble institution."  He also said, "The time will come when only those who believe deeply and ACTIVELY in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us."

I think it's time that I took my role a little more seriously and stepped up to the plate.  Megan starts kindergarten in the fall and will be exposed to so much more of the good and bad in society -- we need a home that is a center for gospel teaching and learning and is a haven where they can feel the Spirit of the Lord.

Happy Relief Society Birthday!

Thursday night was our annual Relief Society birthday dinner.  My secretary had a fun idea to do a Mad Hatter Tea party.  I wasn't completely on board in the beginning (I worry about things getting out of control), but in the end it was beautifully done and a lot of fun.  I did promise the ladies that I would not post their pictures on Facebook and I don't know if they read the blog or not but just in case, I won't post them here either.  And actually, the only real reason I'm posting the pictures is so that in the future I can reference them for another activity in another ward!  

The entrance to the cultural hall was meant to look like you were going down the rabbit hole so the brown fabric frames the doorway.  It was really cute.

The handouts I made -- yes the poem is cheesy.  I will never be a professional poet -- too rhyme y.

 

Table settings

A sister in our ward had done hats for a tea party in another ward -- glue a paper bowl onto a paper plate and decorate!  Everyone got into it, even people who brought and wore a hat from home.  It turned out sooooo cute!  It would be fun for a little girl's birthday tea party too.

The whole shebang.  The pink on the tables is wrapping paper!  Cheap and disposable!  I work with such talented sisters.

Beautiful cake done by a sister in our ward -- this was her 3rd attempt but it was gorgeous AND delicious.

Now I want a silver tea set just to decorate with.  I am too much of a whimsical girl at heart. 

  

There were eat me signs in the cupcakes and tea sandwiches and drink me signs in the cups for punch.

Dinner was tea sandwiches -- cucumber, chicken salad, egg salad, and cheese spread -- salads, cupcakes.  Very dainty and very good.

We decided we needed a white rabbit and since William goes with me everywhere I go, he got the vote!  My friend Trulee put together an awesome hat for him that I'm sure he'll never forgive me for . . .  

I should probably take a better picture of my hat so you can see the possibilities.  Although I did take the parts home and use tulle as well as flowers.  Hey I like fancy hats!!!

Now tomorrow I get to speak in church about Relief Society and then my mom is coming to visit, Abby's birthday is on Thursday, and then Easter!  It's been a busy month!

Mishmash

So here are the bits and pieces from about the past week -- just the highlights really.

Our spring break was this past week which really only meant no school for Megan.  We managed to fill our time  with plenty of outdoor things since the weather was simply beautiful.

We went with a friend to Arbor Hills -- a "park" with trails and woods and plenty of things to explore.  Our friends are really into geocaching and have an app on their phone that locates any close to your current location.  So we did a little bit with them and the girls really enjoyed the search for treasure!

Believe it or not I already can't remember what we did the rest of the week!  I guess that it wasn't too memorable.

On Saturday it was 80 degrees and so we went to the Arboretum (my parents took bets on this apparently and dad won).  More and more trees and bushes are starting to bloom including this amazing forsythia: 

That would be the yellow bush in the background.

A visit to the Arboretum always inspires Chopper to tackle our own yard.  What that means this time around is that he hacked away all of our bushes in the front. 

I think it's a ploy to get me to let him take them out completely.  Chopper says they'll be back in a month, just smaller and more manageable.  Eventually we'd like to put flowers or something else in for a little color but we need to research what will actually survive the weather!

More Arboretum -- we all ended up with sunburns on our arms -- it was fantastic! 

 

Twirling.  I read a cute book called Edenbrooke.  It's a regency romance (but not romance like, you know, romance) and the main character likes to twirl.  Random information for you there.

Kind've cool (or gross) that this moss is growing down like slime.

Sunday night my best friend from college came for a visit!  She and her family (husband and daughter Stephanie) were passing through on their way to their spring break vacation in San Antonio.  They stayed the night and the next morning and relaxed and played.  It was so good to see her -- it's been about 2 years.  Of course I didn't get any pictures of her, just her daughter . . . 

And William because he's irresistible.

Quick update on that -- we're working more aggressively on the food.  He doesn't seem to mind the taste and is gagging less but still fights me actually getting it into his mouth.  After about 4 "bites" he refuses to open at all or covers his mouth with his arm.  I'm not kidding.

He's not crawling but he's headed there.  On his stomach he spins and scoots backwards and sitting up he flips himself over to reach things and bounces around a little bit.  Since the record for crawling among my children is 11 months, I would say that he's well on the way to breaking it.

Busy or Lazy?

My mom sent me an email saying that she knows I'm busy when my blog isn't update.  Unfortunately, this time it's only partly true.  I am busy -- but I'm also really really lazy right now.  William is getting up 2 to 3 times a night right now because he's a hungry turkey and refuses to eat solids. My quiet times during the day should be filled with accomplishing the tasks that I need to and instead have been filled with tv, books, and sleeping.  So I'll have to post over the next few days in short bursts and get it all in!

So the first update is the Dallas quilt show that I went to 2 Saturdays ago.  It was a good show although I think going to Houston has ruined me.  I only took about 20 photos!!  And they were mostly the unusual ones.  But I went with friends (and William) and had a great time.

This was the winning quilt.  AMAZING workmanship -- terrible color I thought.  Sorry.

A quilted BLT!

Loved this one -- the dinosaur parts come off of the quilt panels.

Chopper was teasing me the other day that if I didn't take the spare room and make it into a quilting room, he would take it and make it into a fishing room.  They had this horrible quilt that would have to be the centerpiece for that I think.

Except that I confiscated the room for quilting after all.  Of course. 

This is miniature -- they always get me.

Amazing quilting.  I've decided I want a wholecloth quilt on my bed now.  Problem is that I'm just now finishing up my last hand quilted project and it's been several years in the making.  A king size whole cloth quilt?  Maybe when I retire.

I hear William calling my name so that's phase one done I guess.  He's probably hungry of course.