Let's celebrate!

Although the month isn't officially over yet, I wanted to do a recap anyway. It's been a great month...

1. Happy, Happy, Happy April birthdays to Aunt H, Great-Grandpa E, Grandpa R in Texas, Grandma Nan, Uncle D, and anyone else I may have forgotten, and...

2. Happy, Happy, Happy BIRTHday and welcome to the world to our new cousin Evan Isaac (that makes 11!), born yesterday!!!!

3. Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversary to Grandpa R and Grandma D in Texas!

4. Happy 1st Successful Talk to Wade!

5. Happy Goal Finishing to me, for reading the whole Book of Mormon in one month. (I finished this afternoon)

6. Happy Texas Move and Sold House to Uncle B and Aunt C!

7. Happy Cross-Country Move to Uncle D and Aunt T!

With all that happiness blowing around, I think it's only fitting to celebrate with 31cent-scoop night at Baskin Robbins tomorrow night. :) Here's hoping everyone else has had a great month, too.

VERY pleased!

When I was a kid, my parents started replacing the word "proud" with "pleased." I think it had something to do with President Benson's talk on pride. So....today we are VERY, VERY, VERY pleased with Rhiannon and Wade!

Rhiannon has about 40 pages to go and then she'll be finished with her first personal reading of the Book of Mormon!!!!! She is excited to get baptized in a few weeks, too.

Wade gave his first talk in Primary today. He jumped from his seat up to the podium, smiled really big, took a deep breath, set his talk papers aside, and then proceeded to surprise everyone (his parents included) by giving his talk from memory!!! He only looked at his paper once or twice. He definitely got the Senior Primary kids to sit still and listen! :) Once he sat down he kept looking back at Jason and me with this HUGE grin on his face. Wow. It was a very happy parenting moment, that's for sure.

Rhiannon reminds me of that line about Belle in Beauty and the Beast--"with her nose stuck in a book"! I love her love of reading!

If I'd known he was going to give his talk from memory, I would have captured it on film! Oh, well! Here's Wade after church with his talk in his hands.

Rockin' and rollin'

There's one thing that can get us moving around here, and it's MUSIC. Wade was in a deep sleep this morning, and we were having a hard time waking him up. We tried everything, from alarms to gentle nudges to full-blown hair drying in his room (Rhiannon's, that is). With school starting in 15 minutes, time was of the essence! I cranked up some loud music on iTunes, Rhiannon worked her sister magic, and the morning was saved! Not only did Wade wake up, but he was happy and excited about the music floating through the house. We played the following on iTunes:

"Say", by John Mayer
"Move Along", by the All-American Rejects, and
"Sitting, Waiting, Wishing", by Jack Johnson.

Good stuff, good times! Hope you find time to enjoy music today, too!

The 3 R's

1. Recycling. We're making a collection of items for Rhiannon's upcoming 8th birthday party. We'll be celebrating the whole Webkinz phenomenon and decorating "rooms" for the kids' stuffed animals during the party. I am ridiculously excited about it and have had lots of fun finding different ways to use trash. :) Today I made doll-size binoculars using a stash of coin wrappers. The kids have caught the bug, too. Their most recent creation was turning their stuffed animals' "rooms" into trains.

"Blue Line, Blue Line, Blue Line. All Aboard!"

2. Rolling (cookies, that is.) For a long time Wade has wanted to make "cinnamon cookies." He had some snickerdoodles at preschool a while back and really wanted to try it. We had a good time and ate quite a bit of cinnamon sugar, too.

3. Rain. We've had a ton of it the past two days. I didn't realize how much until I went outside and saw our yardwork trashcan filled about a foot and a half with water. Everything is turning green again!

A self-imposed challenge

This weekend I'm helping with our Neighborhood Watch. I'll be the "base station", which basically means I need to stay awake til 11pm two nights in a row, just in case the two people driving those nights need to report anything suspicious. Staying up that late is going to be a challenge for me, but it's a lot better than being a driver--I'd probably fall asleep at the wheel doing that!

I've got some ideas floating in my head to help me stay alert tonight:

1) Save all of my housework/laundry folding/dish-washing for the evening
2) Take a power nap during the day (thanks, Sophie!)
3) Do some scrapbooking
4) Have a movie marathon weekend and watch Lord of the Rings. (or find a good chick flick!)

I will try my darndest to NOT do any reading. That'll put me to sleep immediately. Wish me luck!!

You win some, you lose some

For a few weeks now I'd been itching to hit some museums on the Mall that we hadn't seen yet. Many friends had suggested beating the crowds by going on a weekday, and since Rhiannon gets out of school early every Monday, today seemed the perfect day for it.

We headed for the National Gallery of Art, first the West Building with older works and then the East Building which houses contemporary and modern art. Let's just say it didn't go exactly as I'd envisioned. First off, Wade was very cranky and didn't understand why we couldn't create any art in an art "moo-zeem." He was bored to tears walking around the famous classics by Van Gogh, Monet, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael. I even tried to play the "Hey, Wade, look, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were named after these artists." We zoomed through that building pretty quickly. The East building was better. We only saw a few things in there, and I think the kids liked what they saw. Their favorite thing there was when I let Rhiannon push Wade around in this little stroller they offered that was really meant for kids half his age and size. Oh, well. By that point I was dying to see real enthusiasm on their faces. :)

The trip was for the birds, as far as my kids were concerned. Truly, Rhiannon and Wade loved something that didn't have anything to do with the museums: they had a terrific time watching this mallard duck that was swimming in a fountain outside. We sat there for a long time, and they were thrilled. Next time we go, I think we'll just park it on the grassy Mall and watch the birds for the day. They'll enjoy that far better than any artsy fartsy thing I try on them. :)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Monet. Wade's expression says it all to me.

I remember seeing this artist (Rubens) in Europe and enjoy his work very much.

The highlight of the day--the duck in the fountain.

The East building--a nice guard offered to take our picture.

Cool mobiles--we liked the shadows that danced around on the wall!

Good luck charm

WADE rolled 3 Yahtzees during our Family Home Evening game tonight.

"There is beauty all around"

Sometimes I forget just how GREAT my life is. I get caught up in lots of little things and can't see the forest for the trees. Well, today some little things helped me remember. These flowers in the front yard just took my breath away!

(This little guy takes my breath away, too, in other ways. For our Joy School "talent show" yesterday Wade wanted to show his friends how he could play baseball. So, we all went out in the backyard and I started pitching to him. His first hit packed quite a punch--and nailed me right in the stomach. Let's just say I'm going to need to be padded before I start throwing him real baseballs!!!)

Despite Tired Tuesday, the rest of the week has been glorious. Hope your day and weekend is wonderful, too!

Daddy's home!

Jason was in CA for business all week. It's so great to have him home! One nice perk of this particular job is that he hasn't had to travel NEAR as much, so when he does have to go somewhere we really feel it.

I can't complain, though, since Rhiannon and Wade are super good about 90% of the time. The other 10% is probably just my own impatience and grumpiness, when I get tired of hearing my name called all day: "Mommy! Mommy? MOMMY!!!!!"

We did some fun things this week: updated the 72-hour emergency kit, watched Enchanted and Becoming Jane, went out to dinner with some friends, and did our usual essential stop at the library.

I started reading the Book of Mormon this week, too. My goal is to finish it by the end of the month. I've found it's possible for me to kill two birds with one stone if I read while I'm walking on the treadmill. 20 pages and about 35 minutes/2 miles later, I can check two things off my list and feel great the rest of the day. Hope I can keep it up!

Happy Conference Weekend to all our LDS family and friends out there!