It is so hard to get good help these days.

This morning before breakfast, some of the kids were in the back yard. Naomi found her jacket, which she had left out overnight, muddied and soaked in sprinkler water. She brought it to the kitchen, handed it to me and said, "Dirty."

Then, while we were eating breakfast, she dropped a blog of Cream of Wheat on the table. She looked at it, looked at me and said, "Clean this."

I scooped it up with her spoon and holding it up to her mouth, replied, "My, you are imperious, aren't you?"


She said, "Yeah," and ate her bite of Cream of Wheat.

Happy Birthday Heather!

Heather turned 11 this month.

Happy Birthday Heather!!!

Some of the girls were on spring break, so we took the opportunity to head to the natural history museum on her big day.

Here is our eleven year old with Kelly in the darkened room of dioramas.

I really enjoyed the dioramas. I liked them as much for the landscapes painted on the curved walls as for the up close views of the animals. This was the biggest one.

The rhinoceroses were neat. I liked the birds they had in the background.



The kids loved this baby boar.

Here are Gwen and Michael looking at the grizzly bear. Michael liked the bears - all of them.

My favorite part of the museum was the birds.

Rachel gave Heather a key chain digital camera for her birthday. Here is the birthday girl using her new toy.

I thought this branch covered with hummingbirds was nifty.

Here is Kelly pointing at a teeny tiny hummingbird skeleton...

...and Michael looking at the breed of rooster with the longest feathers.

There was a bug zoo in the basement and Naomi LOVED it.

After the bug zoo, we went to the gems and minerals collection. Naomi was bored. At one point, she pulled on my pant's leg, looked up at me and said, "Bugs!"

Ends and Odds

Talk about blind faith!

We tortured some friends by putting broccoli on the pizza when they came for dinner.

They must be as crazy as we are, because they liked it!

Rachel made homemade marshmallow eggs. Who would have guessed you could do that?

And, finally. a picture of the kids on Easter Sunday.

Plant Hunting with Stan

Stan took me on an outing with a bunch of botanists on Saturday. They were looking for rare plants. I enjoyed hiking, taking pictures and being with Stan. Some of my favorite times in our early married years were looking for plants with him on road trips, so yesterday's outing brought back some sweet memories.

From the road, things looked dead and brown, but walking out in the field, I was amazed at how much life there was. Tons of insects and flowers everywhere. These are just weeds, but I like the way the pictures turned out :)


I had fun taking pictures of the seed heads and messing around with the manual focus.


And, happy day, this is the threatened lily everyone was hoping to see, Brodiaea filifolia. Pretty, huh?

Rumba!!!

Last year, Heather competed in a social dance event and this year, Gwen took a turn. They even wore the same dress (it looked so cute on them both). Here she is with her partner...

...and here is the whole group. There were about three times as many kids this year as last.

The other thing that was different from last year was that they had a youth division and so the kids were competing against each other instead of against college students and older dancers. Because of that, and because of their hard work and classy dancing, Gwen and her partner won 5 ribbons :)

And now, the dancing!

Waltz

Tango



Swing



Rumba



Foxtrot



Cha Cha

Easter Fun

Gwen and I will be gone all day next Saturday, so we had our Easter fun yesterday. The Easter bunny brought everyone lots of candy and we used all the resulting energy to dye eggs. A couple of the kids blew raw eggs out of their shells so that they could keep their creations, but mostly we colored hard boiled eggs.

Naomi could hardly contain her enthusiasm and ended up on the table (not for long!).

Michael watched while Gwen decorated.

Here are all of them when we were done...

...and here are everyone's favorites.

We also sat and listened to General Conference.

Today, we had lots and lots of deviled eggs for lunch!

Ha Ha

Yesterday, Summer masterminded an April Fool's Day Joke on us. I guess the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree (see the post just below) and she's always had a sense of humor, that girl. Here she is sitting on Uncle Matt's lap 15 years ago.


Last night was a busy evening, as Wednesdays usually are. The older girl's have piano lessons ending at 5. We ran some errands after their lessons...

Wait, let me interrupt myself. I was telling the younger kids where we were going to shop in the car on the way to pick the piano students up. I mentioned Michael's (craft store) and Naomi got jealous. She started whining, "Momo's store? Momo's store?" so I had to rename the school supply place "Momo's Store" for the afternoon to keep the peace.

Anyway, after lessons and errands, we didn't get home until six. I had dinner ready by 6:30, which is on the late side for us. After dinner, there was cleaning up, getting kids ready for bed, talking to Grandma, playing catch, two dirty diapers - the night just flew by!

Stan and I couldn't believe it when it was already nine when we all sat down for scripture reading, but we had dinner late and hadn't been watching the clock (or the teenagers). After scriptures, a lull settled over the room. Rachel asked what time we usually read scriptures, which I thought was insensitive on a night we were having it so late (we shoot for 7:15 ish), so I grumbled, "I don't know." Summer couldn't hold it in any longer, "Rachel and I played an April Fool's Day trick on you! Haven't you noticed?!?"

Stan and I had no idea. Rachel wanted to spill the beans, but Summer wouldn't let her. I asked for a clue - what room was it in? I was informed it was everywhere! Every room in the house! I hazarded an impossible guess, "You dusted?"

Finally, it dawned on me. They put all the clocks ahead an hour. I was both impressed (it was a great joke - we really were fooled) and grateful (we had an entire extra hour more than we thought!).

Big News Times Two, April Fool

Well, we haven't told anyone about this because we didn't know how it would all turn out, but I have been interviewing for jobs lately. We've decided that we could really use another paycheck to help with all those shoes and all that oatmeal we go through. I was just hired as a jewelry designer at a small but growing company in Key West.

I've pulled all the kids out of school to help with the packing because we will be moving this weekend. We'll be having a goodbye party at midnight on Friday and are hoping that after the pizza and cake, everyone who comes will stay to load the truck through the night so that we can be ready to hit the road at 4 am!

Also, while I am spilling my guts of surprises, we have decided to send Rachel to Australia in the fall for high school.


We will miss her terribly, but a great opportunity to be a long term exchange student came up and we wouldn't want our selfish desires to have her around to stand in the way of her chance to experience living in another country. We love you, Rachel!