a little surprise!

I had a happy suprise this morning, a picture of Sierra!! on facebook.  She and Jenna went hiking yesterday.  My Sierra is such a sweet sweet girl.  I miss her.  We don't talk on the phone every day but when we do she's always happy and busy, which I am so glad about. 

I <3 March.  The sun rises a litte earlier, the air is a teeny bit warmer...signs of spring are around.  Our daffodils are starting to poke up from the ground.  They are brave because it is cHiLly outside and who knows if it will freeze or not still but none the less they are there.

cookies and canoes

 Friday night Ethan had a soccer game.  The girls and I put on our pajamas and hopped into bed to watch a movie.  It was a perfect Friday night!  Ethan's team won, btw. 

Today was a good day.  Hannah had an all day birthday party.  The girls went to the Annapolis mall, then in the evening went to Alyssa's to play werewolf.  Ethan had a chess meet, Gracie had cookie booth sales.  It was chilly out but a little hot chocolate and some dancing around seemed to help :)

We had family cleaning hour, and a laundry marathon.

Finally when the chores were done we headed out for some play time.  We went to Waldorf, stopped at the canoe store to "look around", went to Cafe Rio (delicious!!), went to the mall and then to the movies to see "Jack the Giant Slayer", two thumbs up by all four of us. 

Now Lu is in bed, I am finishing today's laundry before I go pick up Hannah and the boys are downstairs working on a project.

sunshine

Some much welcomed sunshine this afternoon found us, and a lot of the neighborhood, out at the park for a quick playtime between school and dinner, activity days and scouts, chores and homework, all of the above.

funny things the kids say and do

The kids generally crack me up.  They are a lot of fun.  I guess that's why I have so many :)  Sadly I forget most of the funny stuff so I thought I'd just jot down a few. 

This morning Lu came in our room bright and early, as usual.  She asked to play with my phone.  When I came out of the shower and went to get her I peeked over at what she was playing, expecting to see bad piggies or swipped.  Instead she was watching youtube videos of fish surgeries.  She's been watching those for a couple of weeks now.  Who knew right?  She had asked me several weeks ago if vets did surgery on fish and I said no I didn't think so but we looked it up to make sure and I was wrong, they do.  So funny.  She wants to be a vet when she grows up.  I think she might.  She's very interested in animals and science so that seems like a likely combo.

Today is twin day at Ethan's school.  He and John dressed alike, black athletic pants with a red strip, Barcelona shirt, red hoodie.  They sat in the back of the car on the way to school, I always love to listen to them during my carpool week.  Today they were talking about wanting to go to Disneyworld together, a dream they think can never be realized...until, a brilliant plan was hatched.  Ready for this?  When they are adults they will have a "fake business" set up.  They will put funds into their "business" account and then one day they will tell "the wives" that they have a meeting and then they will fly to Disneyworld and meet up.  Problem solved.  Both boys agreed that this was a satisfactory plan and they moved on to talk about some level on a game they both play. 

Lastly lately Hannah has been getting a lot of attention from boys.  They ask her out or want to be her boyfriend.  She laments this to me and wonders what to do.  The other night we were walking the dogs, she and I, and she was talking about the latest boy and then she said "curse my good looks, charming wit and great fashion sense!"  It's such burden.  She was joking around of course but I still found it very funny.

cookies and cheese

Thursday after school we picked up our cookie order.  Lu and I have sorted them and have spent a couple trips out delivering.  We have more to go, it's pretty fun though.  It's been rainy and that's slowing down our delivery.  Hopefully tomorrow night we can get them last of them out of the house and happily delivered.

 

Friday was a half day at school. Yay!  Ethan and Hannah went to hang out with Eric and Chelsea after school.  Lu had Madison come here to play.  All the kids had a nice afternoon.  Ethan had a soccer game in the evening.  They won.  After R and I went to Longhorn Steak house with Pete and Katherine.  We always have fun with them, although we all agreed that from now on Outback or Texas Roadhouse would be getting our cow eating business.

 

Saturday we had a million things on the agenda.  Robotics Tournament, Chess tournament, Music Clinic, grocery shopping, Keean's baptism and an evening out.  It was too much...so we bagged it all and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  The wait was really long but we enjoyed looking at the stuff and playing many games of checkers.  Breakfast was really nice. 

In the afternoon we did go to Keean's baptism and then over to his house for dinner.  The kids ate.  I visited.  We left there early and met the Smith's and the Nichols at Ouzos in La Playta.  They have delicious Greek food, seriously yumm-o!  I loved it.  We had a great time visiting too. Then we went to see "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" at CSM.  The Kirkham family was performing in it. It was beautifully done but so sad.  It's the story of a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia that kept mostly children. 15,000 children passed through there, only 130 survived.  So so awful.  The main character was very inspiring, the way she endured.  It's amazing the resiliance of the human soul.  (head shaking)

This morning was stake council, and tonight was a YCL meeting and a camp conf call.  I went with the Laurels to their YW class today.  I have been so impressed with new youth curriculum and it's been so fun to see the different wards and how they are implementing it.  I really wanted to see how our ward was doing it.  Johnna taught a great lesson.  One thing I really love is how much the girls participate, in all the wards I've gone to. 

In other news R is converting his whole office to his fishing hobby.  Ironically today one of his buddies grabbed an old pole and some velvetta cheese and went out and caught a 20inch big mouth. 

puppy

I don't know why but the puppy will do her business immediately when Hannah takes her out.  When I take her out it takes an hour.  Why is that?  This is a real question.  I don't know why.

worst employee ever

 This little puppy got into some Valentines candy and it made her very sick.  Yesterday I got home from work and found diarrhea around the house upstairs.  I cleaned it up..then came downstairs to go to an appointment, followed by a new beginnings, and found more.  I couldn't stay to clean up phase 2 of the mess so I called R to warn him and when he and E got home from the STEM family challenge he found even more mess.  It was ugly.  He and Lu cleaned carpet and doggie.  I <3 my spot bot, without which I am pretty sure Z would have been adopted to a new family before now.  Puppy potty training is not going as well as I want.  R reminds me that all pups take awhile and to be patient.  Grrr.

 This last weekend R had to resurrect, again, this old washer.  It's running again, yay!  Spot bot is leaking now.  Hopefully he can fix it next.  That little thing is a neccessity and has gotten quite the work out the last few days.

 Yesterday was the STEM family challenge, they had to build a bridge that could hold the most marbles.  Ethan and John came in 2nd.

Lu has a new hobby.  They have legos for girls and she's been wanting a set.  I bought her one the other day and she's been building with it every day and now wants more.  I am surprised.  Ethan has never been a lego lover, he has several sets and he's even enjoyed putting a few together but it hasn't been a huge thing for him, which frankly surprises me as well, I thought math brains liked legos.  He is not one for puzzles or legos so much.  But Lu is.  She's a smart girl, maybe she will be the one to follow in her fathers footsteps and be an engineer?

Watched the end of Downton Season 3 last night.  I need a bereavement day now.  It was bad enough when Sybil died but Matthew???  Why?? He was so kind and good.  It's very upsetting.
Luckily, or not so luckily Z has made such a mess that R wanted  me to stay home with her and make sure she is properly taken care of, as well are our carpets kept safe.  I didn't want to.  I am the worst employee ever as I barely manage to show up.  No wonder I can't have a real job, also it causes me great stress to miss work.  Or really to not be somewhere I should.  It's awful really.  But I always do as my husband asks, ahem...well I try to, honestly I do.  So I was home.  Got some cleaning done.  Walked the dog.  Reflected on the marriages (not mine actually but Mary and Matthews, as well as the rest of the shows, as well as some people I know in real life who are happy or not depending.  Interesting topic), wrote some thank you cards.  It was a good day.  This afternoon we have to pick up our girl scout cookie order, Hannah has play practice and R is going on splits with the missionaries. 

the end :)