Easter Sunday

 With a soccer game, piano recital and a very tired mom our Easter weekend was pretty lame.  Thanks to Sarah and Joe for saving the day by organizing an Easter Egg hunt for the kids right before Sunday dinner.

Here's the pictures Bart took of the kids in action!!!

Here's a rare shot all the grandkids sporting their loot.

Aaron is always anxious to hold little ones.  He'll make a great big brother.  Every time I see Harvey I get more excited to have a baby boy of my own.

Piano Recital 2016

It was my girls piano recital today!!!  

I was very proud of my girls for all their hard work.  This was Jane's first recital.  She played the song "Yankee Doodle and Elephant Parade".  Emily played "My Country Tis of Thee and Danza Espanola by Timothy Brown .    It meant a lot to my girls to have their Papa come support them.  For their grandma's and whoever else who wanted to come but couldn't here is a link to a video of them performing.  After you click on the link the password is Piano.

https://vimeo.com/160473954

S + K

How fun a day it was to spend with the Richards celebrating Scott and Kristie's wedding.  They were married in the Bountiful Temple.  

We then went to a wedding luncheon catered by our family favorite "Cafe Rio" at the stake center and then it was off to the reception.  

Here's my kids with the couple while we waiting for the rest of the family for family pictures.

Kristie is marrying to a family where all the little cousins could star in a movie such as "The Wild Bunch".   (Even trying to get a picture was a fiascal.  She's so great with them and will often at Sunday dinner be found playing hide and seek with all of them happily.  We are lucky she's joined the family.  

Aaron really wanted to dance but Jane refused to dance with him!  I was not going out on the dance floor with my swollen feet and big belly.    Aaron was so sad but Suzanne came to the rescue and got him out dancing and then Emily joined along.

Because Scott and Kristie met while playing ultimate frisbee, Kristie opted to toss a frisbee instead of flowers.  Straight to Emily it went.  She was so happy to get it and then I told her what it meant and she gave me a very funny look.    Good thing, I don't need her boy crazy anytime soon 

Congrats!!!!

20 bucks

My mom loves politics.  Growing up there was a lot of talk about being republican.  Even now any mention of supporting a democrat is as bad or worse as disowning our religion.  There was always a lot of campaign paraphanelia around the house.  Especially when my mom was a state delegate for her precinct.  She even received Christmas cards from Governors, senators and congressmen.  My Grandpa Morrell was also the same way and was a county commissioner for years.   Since I've been married every so often when there is an election my mom will start bugging all of us girls to attend our caucus meeting.   A couple years ago she even sent out an email to the family saying she would pay whoever went to their caucus meeting 20 bucks.  As tempting as that was it wasn't compelling enough for me.

This year I decided to attend a caucus meeting.  Mostly because I think it's cool that the GOP in Utah changed to a voters election poll which puts the control back to the people and not the state delegates.  I also feel the need to take part since such a crazy crude guy like Donald Trump is actually winning the republican vote.  I met him a few years ago when Bart took me to Tahoe to a celebrity golf tournament and he seems like the same onry rude person as he was back then. Really?  Have we as American's lost all values?   I'm also really sick of the crazy pregnant Donald Trump nightmares I have.  Plus do we really want a first lady who was once a porn star?    I also happen to work with and really like many Mexican's.  Some of the children's parents are legal and some are not.  I find them to be very humble hard working people who take great care of their children.    I don't always see this is white/black US citizens who think the world owes them a hand out and aren't afraid to ask them.  

So I informed Bart he was taking me to the caucus meeting on Thursday night.  Right before we were ready to go he tried to get out of it but I nicely reminded him about a fiasco I went through to get him some baseball pictures and he didn't say another word and got in the car.    He also said he hopes by going he would not have to see Trump on TV as much.  

Bart was so thrilled to be there (can't you see it in the picture).   I said I feel the same as you do whenever I'm on one of your autograph adventure so just sit back smile and pretend your happy to be here.

I texted this picture to my mom so she would be so proud I finally made it to a caucus.  

So mom we will be expecting our $20 in the mail.  

When your very pregnant........

You decide to pull out the one size to big shoes for your 3 year old, just because they have no laces to bend over and tie and he can put them on all by himself.    Aaron is so excited to put these babies on each morning he'll even put on his socks by himself.    He's pretty proud of his "Darth Vader" shoes.  Especially how they light up.   He was so excited to show his cousins his new shoes and I've been told that when he did cute Andrew said something like "Can I have those when you grow out of them".    Andrew couldn't be a middle child?

Oh the delight he expressed when he pulled these out of the box.  When he put them on he asked in the most sincerely grateful voice "Did you buy these for me mommy".  I then replied "No Aunt Ally did"  He then said "Oh that was so nice of her".    A few times since then he'll be in the back seat of the car and out of the blue say "It was so nice of Ally to buy me these shoes."    I hope Aaron will always keep his happy grateful spirit.

You'll also by waddling around Wal-mart wishing the store was smaller and the necessity trip was over and your 3 year old will spot a box of Star Wars honey grahams. You simply say yes when he asks to have them  knowing full well he told you to buy them before and he barely touched them.   Some battles aren't worth $2.50.    As a true Star Wars fan, when we got home he instantly opened them up and lined up all the character faces.  I was very impressed that he knew all their names.

 I suspect when he has his dad's phone he's up in his room watching the episodes more than I think. Just like before he had no interest in eating the crackers. This time instead of them sitting in the cupboard he proceeded to take one of the Darth Vader's head and crush the other heads with it all the while saying "Darth Vader is killing so and so".    He also later found a stack of note pads and envelopes and spent the afternoon writing notes from Darth Vader.    He also spent one morning collecting cupcake holders, a small box and a whole bunch of tape to make Darth Vader's space ship.  He then with his over enthusiatic way flew it all over the house.

How to Redneck a girls bike

Aaron loves to ride bikes and has grown out of his baby 10 inch bike.  Sitting in the corner of the garage was the girls old pink bike.  This bike is a keeper!  We bought this expensive "Gary Fisher" bike off of Craiglist for $50 bucks and it's held up great.

 The problem with having girls before boys is the color pink.  I remember one Sunday afternoon when I was pregnant with Aaron we were driving up to Bart's parents for dinner.  While stopped at a Red light I noticed on the corner this small family with a couple of girls and this little boy riding a bright pink bike.    My heart hurt for the boy and I had a little anxiety attack that this could be us in a few years.    So here I am with a little boy and a perfectly good pink bike.  Having no desire to spend 70-80 bucks on another bike,  I feel like I'm buying one about every year,  I take the red neck approach.

First Bart pumped  up the tires and attached the training wheels.

Then Aaron and I head down to the local Home Depot and look through the selection of duct tape.  Aaron spots the Batman duct tape and we are out of the door within minutes.


Bart and Aaron then proceed to cover up the pink with the cool bat man duct tape.

Aaron then is off on a trip around the cul de sac on his " hand me down not so pink anymore" Bat man bike.

Slightly ghetto but he's pretty proud of it so I'm pretty proud of it too.

31 weeks

I'm pretty sure I'm giving birth to a vampire.  I mean what else could be sucking the life right out of me.   Have I mentioned I wish I would have got the memo to have my babies in my early 20's instead of now.  I can't believe how exhausted I am all the time.  It's way worse than with my other kids and I hate when people say oh it's because your chasing around 3 other kids.  I chased them around just fine before I was pregnant. It's more than that.    I feel like I'm walking around with my head in a fog, depressed and feeling like I've got some flu that just won't go away.    But it's just 8 more weeks until I get induced.  I can do it.  Well even if I can't I have no choice but to do it anyway.  I survived or should I say my kids survived my first trimester and we can do the last, even if it means Bart suffers having to eat Little Caesars for dinner more than he would like.  For a while yet I've been wanting to do a paper chain of days until April 28th (the day I'll most likely get induced).  My girls actually started one back around Christmas time but we all got bogged down by the sheer amount of days left that it was a project never finished.  A couple weeks ago I was at Sam's Club and needed some more prilosec (heart burn medicine) I decided to buy enough to take me through the remainder of my pregnancy.    The boxes in my cupboard have become my paper chain.  Each box has a 2 week supply and I'm almost giddy each time I open a new box.

Also the further a long I am the more daunting these stairs are to me.

 

I limit how often I go up them and Aaron (who has figured out my weakness) takes full advantage of the situation.    After way too long going without deep cleaning his bedroom, last week I forced he and myself upstairs and for the next 5 hours I made him pick everything up and organize it back to it's right spot. I'm pretty sure I won't ever write a book about how to motivate your boy to clean his room.   I discovered some treasures under his bed.  For Valentines I gave Bart a big box of pink "Granny Cookies"  a few days later Bart asked me if I knew who had been sneaking into his hiding spot and eating them.  I had nothing to confess since the pink frosting is not at all appetizing to me being pregnant and I said it must be one of the girls because "I haven't seen Aaron eating any"  Well sure enough I found some cookie wrappers under the bed which is the furthest spot away from me downstairs.  I also discovered some rotten apple cores and an entire box of little "beads" spilled and other off limits things that he confiscated from the craft closet.  The little stinker is going to kill me off if this baby doesn't do it first.

I do chuckle a little each night when it's time for bed Aaron will wait for me to waddle over to the stairs and say "Race you mommy"  I of course join a losing race and am happy when he gets delighted that his quick body makes it to the top before I've made it up a couple of stairs.

Work for the first time in 12 years has really become work.  First is requires me to leave my nice recliner with my swollen feet up and chase around 3 and 4 years olds in a preschool to try and get them to talk.   My options for any comfort in the classroom are sitting on the floor or little midget chairs.  After working with a kid for probably too long in one of these chairs I stood up and had the worst round ligament and groin pain.  I could barely walk the rest of the day.   I'm tempted to bring in our rolling office chair from home and roll around on it.  Too bad I don't live in California.  The state provides maternity coverage.  Allyson  said she's seen plenty of ladies come in with excuses such as I need to go on disability before my baby comes because the drive into work is too long and I can't make it without having to stop to pee.  So if I lived there I'd say I can't sit in tiny chairs any longer and need to go on disability and receive compensation for it.

I do try really hard to have positive thoughts.  It's been so wonderful to see my two angels "Emily and Jane" take over  a lot of the cleaning.  Jane is convinced if I bend over the baby will get hurt so she's quick to come when I say "can you pick this up for me". My most comforting thought is that I am meant to be this baby's mother and he is part of my eternal family.  I also have a vague memory of how nice I feel after pregnancy.  It's almost like I experience post partum depression pre partum and the happiness comes back very quickly after I give birth.  So I'll  take feeling crappy before than after  I also have hope from the scripture in D&C that says "Where much is given much is required".  So it makes sense to me that with much sacrifice and suffering during pregnancy comes great blessings like possibly a really easy baby who sleeps well and is calm and happy.  If  this baby is none of those things perhaps he will be an easy toddler or an awesome teenager or go on and win a noble piece prize or something like that.  I'm sure somewhere down the line I'll see awesome direct blessings for being willing to carry this vampire around for 39 weeks.