38 Weeks

I am 38 weeks and looking forward to my induction on April 7th! I am actually feeling great; my third trimester was the easiest by far of this pregnancy. I felt pretty sick my first trimester, had shingles for about a month in my second trimester (so painful!), and Little Mister decided he liked to be awake doing somersaults every night between about 10pm-2 or 3am keeping me awake most of the night during most of the second trimester. But now he must be too big to move that much (fine by me), I have pretty good energy, sleep ok, and am generally feeling pretty good. That said, I still can't wait for him to be here in a week!

Bottles

I've been getting things ready for Little Mister, and the other day that included getting out the bottles and cleaning them. When Logan saw what I was up to he asked if he could help. Yes, please! I wonder how long it will take for the fun of this chore to wear off? I can't tell you how much I would love to have a happy bottle cleaning helper once this Little Guy comes, and I will enjoy it as long as possible. 

An Audience

My girl just loves to read, and she loves to have someone to read to. I love to snuggle with her and enjoy her expressive reading voice. And occasionally Eli humors her and will listen to a book, which always makes my heart happy to see.

Gary's Funeral

A week before Jason's dad passed away, Jason was able to go out to Utah to say his goodbyes. He overlapped with his brother Todd for a day, and they got this picture of the three of them. Jason and I were so glad he got to go out for this trip. Not only did he get to see his dad one last time, but he got to help his mom as well, and see for himself that it really was time for Gary to move on.

The funeral was on March 23rd. I was 37 weeks pregnant and so sadly couldn't go. But Jason went, of course. Here he is with this siblings and his mom the morning of the funeral.

Everyone was there for a long weekend, so they took advantage of downtime to enjoy the beauty of St. George and the lovely weather.

The last night everyone was there they all went out to get ice cream, one of Gary's favorite things to do, and toasted him. He will certainly be missed, but never forgotten.

Until We Meet Again...

On March 12, 2015 we had to say goodbye to a wonderful dad, father-in-law and grandpa. We are so grateful to know we will see him again, but we are going to miss him until we do. We knew this was coming, and in some ways we've been saying goodbye for about two years; first when he was diagnosed with cancer and began the treatments that prolonged his life but took a lot of his energy and personality, then when they moved away about five months ago, and now it's just the final step of him leaving this mortal life.

Jason and I find ourselves almost glad that he's moved on from a body that was growing weaker and weaker in the last month, but are sad for his mom. The kids are still so sweet and innocent that they haven't been sad because they know "he's in Heaven with Heavenly Father; he's lucky!" I wish I could have seen the reunions that took place on the other side; there must have been countless people lining up to meet him and express their gratitude for the work he did on their behalf through his efforts here on earth and a genealogist, temple worker, and sealer.

I feel honored and so blessed to be one of the few who was privileged to call this good man "dad." He was hardworking, kind, funny, service-minded, and loving. He treated his wife with the utmost respect and love at all times, and helped her raise some amazing kids including the love of my life. He treated me like one of his own from the minute I met him. I love him, and will miss him. Until we meet again, dad.

St Patrick's Day

The kids had fun celebrating St. Patrick's Day which was kicked off by, what else, a package from Grandma Quillen. Later in the day Eli said getting the package was his favorite part of the day and said, "Grandma sends us stuff because she loves us. I love her too." Well said, my sweet boy.

Ah, Spring!

The past week or so has been lovely--around 50 degrees and often even warmer. We've spent a lot of time outside and have been loving every minute! Good bye (and good riddance!) winter, hello Spring!

Happy Birthday Parties!

It's hard to believe these two cuties are almost SEVEN! But, since they are, we have to celebrate! We did two separate parties in one day again this year; Ali's theme was Monster High and Logan's was Minions. Logan remembered that he got to have his party first last year, so graciously told Ali she could have hers first this year, and that's what we did.

I didn't get to spend as much mental energy on this party as I would have like to because of other things going on in our lives. Add that to the fact that I woke up on Friday, the day before the party, quite sore from (apparently) overdoing it the day before, so I was a little panicked. I had so much left to do, not the least of which was going grocery shopping so I could make and decorate the cakes! Some very heartfelt prayers went Heavenward, and I was so touched and thankful that as my busy day went on I felt better and better instead of the worse and worse I was expecting.

I was super proud and pleased about how the cakes turned out!

I had some help from my artist-in-residence for the party decorations:

As far as games went, we did basically the same thing at each party, and the games didn't necessarily tie into the theme like I would have liked them to, but the kids didn't seem to notice or care. We played musical chairs, pin-the-bow-on-the-monster and pin-the-goggles-on-the-minion, had cup stacking races, monster high/minion egg hunts, a beanbag throw game (I made posters that went with the themes to cover up the sports figures that were actually on the boards, and was pleased that my limited artistic skills made them look more or less how I'd pictured them), bozo buckets, a ring toss game, and pinatas. At Logan's party we also played minion charades, by FAR their favorite game (which totally surprised me, especially with the wild group we had), and they were HILARIOUS to watch as they acted out verbs like sleep, jump, or eat, all the while making minion "boo-baa" sounds of their own accord.

The guest lists kind of snowballed this year, and they each had almost all the kids come that they invited. The sheer number of kids at each party made the events much noisier and crazier than I would have liked, but the kids (and especially mine) seemed to have a good time, so I call them both a victory.

Snow Shy

When Eli goes in the snow without snow pants he always holds up his pants because he doesn't want them to get wet. But wouldn't it be worse to get his legs wet? Or at the very least cold?

Sleep Hat

Logan decided he needed a hat to sleep in to help keep him warm--a sleep hat--and this is the one he chose.

Professor Quirrell

Eli came downstairs with this mask on the back of his head and said, "Look, Mom, I'm Professor Quirrell!" Pretty creative! (And yes, my four-year-old has seen the first two Harry Potter movies, and we've read the first book together. He loves them, and his definition of being a big boy is "when I can watch the 'Fire Harry Potter.'")

Baby Clothes

The kids each have a memory box that is full of little things from their childhood, which of course we are still adding to... They love to look through the boxes and see cards and party hats from their first birthdays, their old pacifiers, and other little mementos. One of the things that always gets the biggest reactions from them are their coming home from the hospital outfits; they can never get over how tiny they are -- and neither can I! The other day, Ali wanted to see if her newborn clothes were small enough to fit on one of her dolls, and she thought it was simply amazing when they did!