Progress

So, since my last post our little seed experiment has done quite well. The kids have loved coming out each morning to see the progress each little seed has made. As predicted the watermelon seeds have done nothing but the other seeds are doing pretty well!

This past week I made progress on my house and by Friday had it clean enough for my sister and brother in law to come. We love having their family come visit. Since it was Easter weekend we enjoyed the annual Walmart easter egg hunt. They had the ages separated, so I only got pictures of Mo, but they all came away with way TOO much candy!!

After the hunt we took the younger kids to the primary activity and then N8 took all of the kids on a hike up overlooking Ridgecrest. This way Mo could get a nap (and so did Karen and Ray)!

The easter bunny was very generous at our house. He filled and hid a lot of eggs for the kids to find and they loved it!! With each hunt Mo made progress with his egg hunting abilities.

Unfortunately illness also progressed!! Ray arrived a little sick and thought he was at the tail end. I think he might have been more in the middle! Karen arrived feeling fine, but woke up Saturday feeling a little stuffy, achy and sore. Sunday it was full-blown and she stayed home from church to rest up. We were still able to get some good easter pictures!

We also celebrated N8's birthday in Sunday. His birthday is actually Wednesday, but he left on travel this morning for the week. We opened presents and had some really yummy pie!!
Happy Birthday N8, we love you!!

Faith is like a little seed...

So, Bud has this fun book called "The Usborne Big book of Science things to make and do". He loves to look through it and find different experiments to do and things to make. I will admit that sometime I do the projects a little begrudgingly, but we did a fun on one Sunday and extended it out the Family Home Evening last night. On Sunday we had watermelon as part of our dinner. I somehow mistakenly got a seeded watermelon. My kids spent dinner picking the little black seeds out with their fingers because they didn't want to swallow them! Bud was quick to point out though that they wouldn't grow in your stomach because there wasn't any soil in your tummy! Smart kid! So with the saved seeds we make "beany bags" (which were really "watermelon bags"). You stick a damp paper towel in a ziploc, but a few staples in to hold up the seed and throw the seeds in. I will admit to not being really confidant that these will grow, so yesterday I picked up a few other packages of seed that might be a little more probable to sprout!

Here are the watermelon seeds:
Here are the pumpkin, bean and pea:
They're taped up on our sliding door so we can watch their progress!
N8 is on travel this week so I had to do a craft! Ever since we painted our fireplace wall there has been an empty spot above the TV begging for something. Yesterday I did this. So far I like it:
Also, I needed to swap out my snowflake magnets and made these:
And Kathryn and Bruce, watch your mailbox- I finally sent off your free stuff. You're both getting your own set of flower magnets!!

Our little family...

This last week we got our family pictures take. I love having current family pictures and try and get them taken fairly regularly. But, after President Monson's talk "Finding Joy in the Journey" I found it to be even more important to me:

In the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, Church member Jay Hess, an airman, was shot down over North Vietnam. For two years his family had no idea whether he was dead or alive. His captors in Hanoi eventually allowed him to write home but limited his message to less than 25 words. What would you and I say to our families if we were in the same situation—not having seen them for over two years and not knowing if we would ever see them again? Wanting to provide something his family could recognize as having come from him and also wanting to give them valuable counsel, Brother Hess wrote—and I quote: “These things are important: temple marriage, mission, college. Press on, set goals, write history, take pictures twice a year.”5

So here are a few of my favorites for your viewing enjoyment. Mo wasn't the best at sitting still (is he ever!!), but hey they got taken!!
And here's a slideshow of a a few more:

3rd times the charm...

On Wednesday we headed down to LA for our spring break activities. We decided we were going to take the kids to the California Science center. It's free, you just pay for parking. From reading online it looked like they had a couple of areas geared toward younger kids. Well, I personally would not recommend it.

But at the same place there was also the the California Aerospace Museum. It's was much less crowded, also free and had more hands-on things that our kids enjoyed! They had a couple of actual space capsules, a space suit, airplanes hanging from the ceiling, a helicopter and more! The kids liked it here much more.

After that we decided to check out the Natural History Museum. This is where I say the 3rd times the charm. When I first told the kids that we were going to a museum, Bud told Emma that we were going to see dinosaur bones! Since the first two didn't have any, we decided we had to check this one out! It ended up costing $20 for our whole family which wasn't too bad.
We stayed down there at the LA temple apartments and N8 and I both got a session in. On Thursday we drove up to Lancaster and got some family pictures taken and a Costco run in. On our drive back home we drove out toward the Antelope Valley Poppy Perserve ( http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=627) The poppies aren't quite fully out yet, but they're almost there. In another week or two it will be a great time to go!
Tonight N8 is taking Bud and Emma camping with a few other people from the ward. We decided Mo is still into too much to be any fun camping so I'm staying home. We're going to miss the ward's Father and Son's campout so N8 wanted to get a campout in during spring break.

Blogger in the making....

We're training Mo up early to be a blogger...
N8 is so proud!

Emma and Bud on the other hand are working on their veterinary skills-
But they also have the computer thing down!!
I did take Mo into the doctor yesterday to make sure he wasn't dehydrated or had something else going on with all of the diarrhea. Dr Kitty said we had done a good job at keeping him hydrated and feeding him all of the right things--bananas, rice chex, toast, soy milk, yogurt & acidophiles. She did have us do a poopy sample to check and make sure it wasn't salmonella or rotovirus. We haven't heard back on that yet. The number of diapers I'm changing has slowed significcantly, so I'm happy. We're headed down to LA and Lancaster Wednesday and Thursday so we need him healthy!!

Cat shows and birthday parties and barfing oh my!

You never know what a weekend will bring. I love that we have flex Fridays! We started out this flex with a might long list and accomplished everything on the list except one item by dinnertime! We spend the majority of the day working on the yard-mowing, digging up bamboo, cleaning out weeds, etc. N8 also took every item out of our fridge and wiped it all down! It's amazing how things get lost in the depths of the fridge. We had 3 bottles of mustard and 3 jars of dill pickles, but 7 jars of salsa!! Mmmm salsa! I worked on dehydrating more apples! This week a truck overturned full of braeburn apples and Ridgecrest became the beneficiaries of those apples! I ended up with a box/bushel/100 Apples!! I have made applesauce, dehydrated, froze, and made bread with my apples. I really should have made a few phone calls and borrowed a peeler/corer/slicer because that's a ton of apples to peel, core and slice by hand! Today they got more apples from another truck. I told N8 I was not getting anymore apples, I am done with apples!!

Today we had plans to have N8 take the kids on a hike out in the desert and get some more work done in the backyard. But... Ridgecrest wind came today and put those plans on the backburner. Instead we ran some errands and worked on the computer. This afternoon Emma and I went to a Cat Show:

I explained to Emma before we went that the cats would not be putting on a show (no dancing or jumping threw hoops!!) and that she was only allowed to look and not touch the kitties! She did convincce 4 different cat owners that she needed to pet their kitties and we loved looking at all of the beautiful felines!

Bud and a birthday party to go to after that. It was a little girl in his class at school that lives around the corner. In the past we've seen that when they have a party they get a giant bouncehouce and put in in the front yard. They did for this party too. I think this will be dubbed the marathon birthday party though. It started at 4 and Bud and I got home at 7:30! He had fun and that's what matters.

While he was at the party I ran to Staples to make copies of the Ward Activity flyer that I had previously messed up! Then I ran to the Weinersnitzal to pick up a quick dinner. While I was waiting patiently for my fast food that was being awfully slow- N8 called to let me know Mo had barffed up his goldfish crackers and Gatorade. We have been battling a stomach bug with him most of the week. Tuesday he threw up twice and we thought we were done. Then the diarrhea started and hasn't stopped. Now we're back to the barfing. If tomorrow he doesn't start to do better I'll be making a call into our doctor.

So, tomorrow Ricky and Kim are taking Bud and Emma to church. I thought it would be hilarious if they sat on the stand with N8, but realized I wouldn't be there to witness the craziness. We really appreciate that Ricky and Kim are here and willing to help. Hopefully we're on our way out of this entire buggy business!

Mission pictures!

So my parents finally send some mission pictures!! I was excited to see where there are and a little bit more of what they're doing. I look forward to seeing more pictures!

Here's their apartment in Georgetown, Guyana:
Here is the Suriname Branch:
Here they are at a waterfall in Trinidad:Hurrah for Israel!
Here they are in Trinidad:
Goat guarding the Pershad Branch (They might want to invest in a dog or two!):
A kindergarten class in Lindon:
It's fun to here of all the work that they are doing. They sound busy helping establish the church and teaching the members about family history and how to do it. It also sounds like they're both getting some good music skills in. My mom will probably come home an accomplished pianist/organist!

Mom and Dad, thanks for sending pictures, keep them coming!!