Our Family Project

I saw this on my friend's blog and thought I just had to copy it for our 10th anniversary! (Yes, we have been married that long, can you believe it?!?) What is your sweetheart's name? Jon How long have you guys been married? 10 years today. Where did you meet? In his apartment when we were both attending Ricks College. My roommates and I wanted to find a ride to Wendy's, and we went to Jon's apartment to see if anyone there could give us a ride. Jon and his roommate (an old buddy from his church mission) were sitting in the living room singing a song they were both familiar with from their missions to Chile. What was your first thought when you met him? There is no way this guy has not been in a choir before. He sings really well. Do you remember what he was wearing? Not exactly, but he was into his plaid flannel shirt and jeans stage at the time, so probably the red plaid shirt that Eliza currently uses for her art smock in school. Where were you the first time yo...

I love doing my daughter's hair. It's just fun. And, it's especially fun that Maryanne has enough hair for me to pull it into pig tails and top knots. So cute! Eliza and Kate were virtually bald until they were 18 months old, so this is completely new and I'm loving it. This is how Maryanne went to church on Sunday, and she was one of the most adorable babies there (it helps that the only other baby is a newborn girl, so really they are both adorable in their different stages). And, here's a little video of Andrew making Maryanne giggle. I swear, it is the cutest thing. At first all I could hear was Maryanne giggling. Then, I grabbed the camera and came over near them to get it on video. She is adorable (notice the effects of the pigtails in her hair), and Andrew is so sweet!

Tonight during family night Eliza was giving us a lesson about having a good attitude even when things aren't going the way we want them to. To illustrate her point, she needed two of us to "pretend" to play a game. One of the players was to show having a good attitude when losing and the other would demonstrate a bad attitude when losing. Kate and Andrew took their turns and did just great. Then, Adam and I took our turns. He came up to me and said, "I'm gonna take you out." Well, the first time we pretended to play tic-tac-toe and Adam won, so I demonstrated a poor attitude in losing. Then, we pretended to play again and I excitedly said, "I won!" Adam then turned around, ran behind Eliza's chair and crouched down crying. He had the saddest face. And, the rest of us? We were hysterically laughing because it really wasn't a game, but he took it so seriously (Jon needs to interject here and say that he was also laughing because of the iron...

I finished these a couple weeks ago, and it's been so nice to send lunch and snacks with my girls to school in these reusable snack bags and sandwich wraps. I made some back in August or September, but not nearly enough. I ended up using plastic bags twice a week for them. So, I finally took the time to make quite a few. I'm such a sucker for fat quarters, and the last time my mom was here we went to the quilt store and I bought a bunch just for these bags. (Oh, btw, did you know that sometimes quilt store charge more for a fat quarter than for 1/4 yard of fabric, even though you get the same amount of fabric, just cut differently?) It seems I can't go to the quilt store without buying at least one fat quarter. These bags work up pretty quickly too. I altered the way I cut everything out this time, and I didn't serge every seam this time ... and they hold up a lot better. Anyway, I was thinking I'd make a bunch (probably just three or four sets) to go in the auction...

Maryanne is four months old (okay she has been for about a week), and she's doing lots of fun things now. She started to roll over a couple weeks ago; she did it for me twice one night and then in the morning I showed the older girls. Then, she wouldn't do it again! Until this week. She still gets caught getting her leg over, but she can do it when she really wants to. She's also started to reach for her toys. It's so cute! Now she can be happy playing with her toys instead of just looking at them. We can probably give her some cereal now, but she's doing okay on her current diet so I'll wait until the doctor says she needs it. She's also quite a talker sometimes. And, to strangers she's the loudest. Maybe she's telling them to stay away or something. Anyway, she's pretty cute right now ... next she'll be sitting, something she's almost doing by herself already!

Today is my first-born's birthday. She is nine-years-old. I can hardly believe it's been that long. The other night I was talking to Eliza and Kate about how each of our children's births was special. I listed off things like: Kate's was special because she was almost born in the car and then after she was born she couldn't breath so she was whisked away from me immediately; Andrew's was special because he was showing his stubborn streak even in utero and wouldn't come until I went in for an induction and my doctor broke my water; Adam's was special because we never found out whether he was a boy or girl before he was born, and he was the first even numbered birthdate in our family; Maryanne's was special because she got here the fastest, and her birthdate is half of Adam's (16/2=8). But, Eliza thought it was so cool that the reason her birth was so special was that she had to be suctioned out with the vacuum and had a cone-head for a few hours, ...

After Christmas we didn't get our tree out to the curb by the time the city came around and picked up the real trees . So at the time we decided to put our tree in our backyard (much to our neighbors chagrin, who had to look at it all winter long) until the weather was a little nicer ... then we'd burn it. Jon always gets Good Friday off work, so this Friday we went outside (can I just say it was in the mid to high 50s!) and had ourselves a nice bonfire. We hadn't cleaned up our garden very well last spring, so I pulled all the dead marigolds out of the borders of the garden, and we had some wood scraps that we threw into the fire as well. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for lunch. Yum! And, Andrew and Adam played on the swingset while Jon cut up the better wood scraps to make an organized pile of wood to pull from when we need it for a project. Jon burned the hair on his arm. It's a measure of our hairy his arm is that he hair was burned, but his skin wasn't...

Each year we do an Easter Egg hunt. Usually, though, we do an egg hunt with our plastic eggs filled with items that represent a part of the Easter Story. Then, I number the eggs and we read the scriptures that correspond with each egg. This year, however, we were invited to participate in an egg hunt on the Saturday before Easter with our friends. So, I made hard boiled eggs and the children painted them because I don't do the dyeing thing. I don't know which activity they enjoyed more, the painting or the hunting. I only made two eggs for each of the children, and every one of them asked for more when they were done painting their two. Kate even painted her's twice! I didn't have the presence of mind to take pictures while Kate and Adam were painting their eggs so I only have pictures of Eliza and Andrew. And, for some reason I couldn't find Adam very well during the hunt. Oh well, next year I'll get pictures of "our" egg hunt.

Okay, so I checked out my sister's blog today after not looking at it for a while and noticed that she had scrapbooked a couple of pictures of us when we were younger. So, I clicked on the pictures to read the journaling. It took me to Two Peas in a Bucket . As I was reading her comments about her page I noticed that she said she used "the new Marisa's Room digital papers." She totally named her digital paper kit after me! I think that is so cool. And, her papers are awesome! I just love it! So ya'll have to go check it out!

I checked out. For a while. From a lot of things. ......from laundry, paperwork, sweeping...... ...........from cooking, counters, cleaning..... ......from exercise, blogging, work........... I checked out. For a while. From a lot of things. And, it's hard to check back in. One foot is in the door ...