Easter

Easter was a lot of fun this year. Both Megan and Jeremy were very excited to get so much candy and not have to beg or eat healthy food in order to get it.




Dying Eggs at Grandma Rosie's House








Megan and Jeremy find their Easter baskets!







and the most popular item in the
Easter baskets (other than candy)
is . . . sunglasses!






Megan and Jeremy in Easter clothes









Jeremy








Megan

Conference, the Johnsons, and Outer Space, Oh My!

The weekend of March 21-22 I got to go to the LDStorymakers conference in Sandy. It was a blast and I learned a ton. I got to meet people in my Authors Incognito group that I've been e-mailing back and forth with for a year and hadn't met yet since we live all over the western United States. We're a group of writers that are working on getting published and help each other with our writing, ideas, etc. I also got to meet authors that I love and will soon love when I finish their books. This was actually my third time attending the LDStorymakers Conference, so I'd met most of these authors before. This time I also got to meet editors of different publishing houses and talk to a couple of them. I am currently getting my embarrassing stories manuscript ready to send in to Lisa Mangum of Deseret Book. I got to have a personal meeting with her at the Conference and it was great! She's really nice and very helpful.After the conference Nathan and the kids picked me up and we met our good friends, the Johnsons, for dinner. It took us about half an hour to find a parking space since there was a Jazz game going on-- really annoying. Anyway, it was great to visit with them. I got to see them in February when I went to Life, the Universe, and Everything conference in Provo (I was lucky enough to stay with them), but Nathan and the kids hadn't seen them in a long, long time. Here is us at the Blue Iguana in SLC.
Nathan had taken the kids to the Clark Planetarium during the weekend, but had forgotten his camera. So after dinner we went back to the Planetarium and let the kids run around. These pictures are of Megan and Jeremy "walking on the moon" and "walking on Mars."

St. Patty's Day

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day in our traditional manner- a dinner party! Nathan got up at 6:30 A.M. and got two crock pots going with corned beef. We invited a lot of people to the party and so we assigned the other foods to them: dilly bread, colcanon, and apple oat crisp. Everything was delicious! Even Megan and Jeremy ate the food! And for those of you that have read my posts on trying to feed these kids, you know that is a miracle.

I decorated the tables with simple green table clothes, but on the food table I bought a really pretty, white flower (no idea what it is actually called) and put it in a green pot. Then I got some white and green helium balloons and had them floating above the flower. I also blew up a bunch of green balloons for the kids to play with. There were 6 kids running around with balloons all night long. It was really nice when we decided to play a game and the kids were content to leave us alone and just play with the balloons some more.

Hill Air Force Museum

On Wednesday we decided to go down to Roy and visit the Hill Air Force Museum since the kids LOVE airplanes. Also, I had gift cards for Target and we needed a new infant car seat for Emma.

I have to interrupt this blog to let you know that Jeremy just told us he needed to go potty and when Nathan let him get on the little potty, he actually did pee!!!!! Yeah!!!!!

Ok, back to the airplanes.

Megan and Jeremy got so excited as we drove up to the museum, just pointing and yelling, "Airplane! Airplane!" When Jeremy says it his voice gets deep, it's really funny.

It was a nice get-away and fun was had by all. It did make for rather a long day, but at least the kids slept well last night. Exhaustion sometimes works wonders.

Cinderella

Today I took Megan to a matinée of Cinderella performed by the Cache Valley Civic Ballet. I thought it was very well done for a little town like Logan. I was a little worried for Megan at first since there's no talking in ballets, but she did very well and didn't get tired until there was only five minutes left. They added some humorous moments to it with the step-mother and step-sisters (the sisters being played by men).

She asked me lots of questions about it, who people were, what characters were doing, etc. It was by far the most different Cinderella story she's seen since she's used to the Disney and book versions. They had fairies that represented the seasons, grasshoppers, and other weird little additions that I'd never seen before. One of the season fairies, Winter, is a girl from our ward. Tomorrow I'm going to show her to Megan and see if she remembers her.

After the ballet the whole cast came out to meet the audience. Megan got to meet Cinderella, the Fall Fairy, a messenger, and one of the step-sisters. She was expecting the step-sisters to be played by girls, so when the guy bent down and said hi to her in his deep voice she kind of freaked out a bit. She dug herself into me and wouldn't talk to him. He acted like it was normal with kids her age and wasn't offended, so that was good.

The girl that played Cinderella was a sweetheart. She was so attentive to Megan and even told her that Megan gave her the best hug she'd had all day!

The picture of Megan with Cinderella is blurry because the camera was on the wrong setting and I didn't know it. The picture didn't look blurry on the screen, so I didn't think about it and didn't realize it was on the wrong setting until we were ready to go. I tried to get another picture of Megan with Cinderella, but then the batteries in the camera died. . . . Of course it started working again when we saw the Fall Fairy on our way out, but by then Cinderella was gone.

Anyway, here are the pictures. The first one is a self portrait of Megan and me during Intermission. Then Megan with Cinderella, and then the Fall Fairy.

Pajama Time!

Nathan made up a song for the kids to sing as they get ready for bed. It was really cute and we decided to record it. Megan tried to sing it for Grandpa Roy over the phone, but it was probably hard to understand what she was saying since she was talking to him on the computer using Skype. Enjoy!

Quote of the Day . . . oops, Week

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but a few weeks ago I added a "Quote of the Day" section to my blog. I love quirky and poignant quotes and so if you like, check out my quotes section. It is located on the left side just under the picture of Nathan and the kids.

I don't actually change it every day. It is more like every week. Maybe sometime I will make it consistent, like every Monday so it coincides with the new Strong Bad emails. And I guess when I bother to do that I'll change it so that it is called "Quote of the Week." Ok, fine. I'll go ahead and change its name now. And I'll try to remember (and force myself) to change it every week. And I'll do it on Mondays since it'll be easier for me to remember with the whole new Strong Bad email thing to go along with it. Anyway, I'm going to post old quotes here so if there is one you liked and can't remember what it was, it'll be right here waiting for you. And in case you hadn't noticed the quotes section before, a few of the previous quotes, as well as the current one, have been:

"Seize the moment. Think of all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart." -Erma Bombeck

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." -Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"I have found that when one is embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through it is to quit talking or thinking about it, and go at something else." -Abraham Lincoln

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." -John Lennon, Beautiful Boy

-Ok, never mind. I am not going to keep a running list of all the quotes. It would be too long and I just don't want to do it. If you like it, write it down while it's there. Use the copy/paste function or something.

It's Magic!

Tonight we were on our way home from Petsmart (Nathan had some questions about Cichlids) and Megan asked us, as she often does, why it was so dark out. We explained, as we usually do, that it is dark because it is night-time and the sun went to bed. Then Megan asked why it was dark in the car. I explained again that it was dark in the car because it was dark outside, and it was dark outside because the sun was in bed. Then she asked me to make it so there would be light in the car. I assumed she wanted me to suddenly call forth the sun and demand that it come and light up Logan, Utah for five more minutes so she could have light in the car on the way home. I told her I couldn't make it light in the car and with genuine surprise she asked, "You don't have magic?" Nathan and I just looked at each other and tried not to laugh out loud. It was cute.

Scary House

So since Jess wrote me and told me it was time for a new post, and this is the only idea I've had for a while, this is it!

I've been searching for a house in Cleveland since that is where we will be moving in just a few short months. I can't find much in our price range because the property taxes there are so dang high! I did contact a realty agent and she sent me 75 houses to look at and/or read about. The first ten or so on the list were dang scary. I was just like, I did tell her that I wanted a house in a safe area, didn't I? And I did tell her that I wasn't willing to overhaul entire houses, didn't I?

Anyway, here are a couple pictures of the house that I thought was the scariest. Enjoy!