The Beginning of a New Era

Amelia hit her 6 month mark a few weeks ago.  After quite a few sleepless nights of her waking up every hour, I finally decided to stop dragging my feet and try feeding her solid foods.  We decided to start with oatmeal.  Here’s how it went.

She was pretty excited about the prospect (and wanted to show off her new tooth in the process)!

And tried to let us know just how hungry she’s been by eating her bib before we could get started on the food itself.

Here goes the first bite…

The reaction…

After a few bites she seemed to warm up a bit and seemed cheerfully willing to try some more.

But then it was Daddy’s turn to do the feeding.

Yes, Amelia, you seriously have to eat this stuff.

But you don’t have to like it.

All done……for now.  At least we can still be friends, right?

OOOOOklahoma

Every once in a very rare while I get the chance to escape from responsibility and get pampered a bit.  Last week just happened to be that chance for me.  Amelia and I left all the boys for 4 days while we went to Oklahoma to be totally and completely spoiled by Amy, Scott, and Cooper.

I could tell what kind of a trip it was going to be when Amy picked me up from the airport in Oklahoma City complete with a bag of fresh homemade cookies all wrapped up and tied with a cute bow and a note welcoming me to Oklahoma.  That’s just how Amy is.  She has such attention to detail and thoughtfulness that I always feel special when we’re together.

After a gorgeous drive through the Arbuckle Mountains we arrived in Ardmore, OK to Amy’s house.  I was shown to my room complete with even more luxury.

My four days there consisted of a lot of laughing, a lot of shopping (I’ve decided I just can’t go clothes shopping without Amy), a manicure, a pedicure, gourmet food that I didn’t have to cook (Amy makes it seem effortless to cook delicious and healthy food while taking care of a busy baby), sleeping in, relaxing, baking cookies, and snuggling with cute little Cooper.  It is okay if you’re jealous while reading this- it really was a fabulous few days!

Cooper and Amelia loved their cousin bonding time.

I know I’m really lucky to have the good fortune to be Amy’s only sister.  It was so fun to spend time with her!  I can already tell this will have to become a regular occurrence!  Thanks Scott and Amy!

General Conference

Last weekend was General Conference.  Derek is now eight years old and finally old enough to go into the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.  We decided that’s a big enough deal to merit a road trip, so we loaded the family in the car and headed out to Utah!

I didn’t take as many pictures on the trip as I should have, but we had a great time together as a family.  We stopped once on the way there for lunch at the Charcoal Burger in Glenwood Springs.  It reminded me a lot of BJ’s Velvet Freeze, my favorite ice cream shop in Colorado Springs.  The lunch was great!  Derek’s was the most unique.  He ordered a hot dog and got this:

We first arrived in Provo where we shared pizza and laughter with Glenn’s siblings.  The boys were overjoyed to play with their cousins after sitting in the car for 8 hours!

From there we headed to Salt Lake.  There are few things I love as much as actually attending General Conference in Salt Lake.  Part of it has to be fun memories from going every year as I was growing up.  I remember standing in line for hours in the cold with my dad, waiting to get in to the Tabernacle.  I loved it then and I love it now.

Glenn and Derek went to the Saturday morning session in the Conference Center.  Derek loved it!  They ended up sitting next to Elder and Sister Richards, a couple Glenn met on his mission who we love and admire but have not seen for years.  That’s another thing I love about General Conference- you never know who you’ll run into!

Glenn and I were both able to go in with Derek to the Saturday afternoon session.  There is nothing quite like sitting in that huge Conference Center with thousands of people and President Monson.  I loved being there with Derek to share in such a special moment for him.

Of course, being with family is the best part of going to General Conference. 

The boys might have thought sharing the hotel bed was a little too much family time!

Per tradition, we ate lunch at the Lion House and spent all our free time swimming in the hotel pool!  We rounded out the weekend with going to watch the Sunday morning session of Conference at the home of our dear friends, the Ericksons.  An ideal weekend!  I love our General Conference traditions and I hope this is just a start for Derek and our other kids learning to love Conference as much as I do!

The Little Girl Effect (Easter 2013)

I’m falling behind here on the blog, but life has been so fun lately that I just have to write all about it.  Easter came and went a couple of weeks ago.  I love Easter.  I’m not really into Easter baskets or the Easter Bunny, but I do love getting our kids (and us) dressed in our best clothes to go to church to honor such an important and wonderful day.  In the past that meant the boys wearing suits with new ties.  Having a girl, however, has changed everything.

Nine days before Easter this year I suddenly had the idea to make Amelia an Easter dress.  I could picture what I wanted and figured I could either shop for hours (which I can’t stand) and still not end up finding the dress or I could just spend those hours trying to make one myself.  The tiny little fact that I have almost no sewing skills did not sway me.  I decided to make it.

Even as I was working on it I told myself that I was crazy.  Amelia did not need a ruffled, pink dress that was way beyond my ability to create.  But something about having a little girl has inspired me to sew despite the fact that I’m not a seamstress.  And the sewing is actually fun when I picture her cute little face surrounded by whatever it is I’m making!

So, here is the end result.  Warning: it is a LOT of pink!  I loved the dress (despite the fact that it barely fit and was a pain to make and has all sorts of flaws and is not exactly what I had pictured).  I even used a real glass button from her great-great Grandma Amelia’s button collection on the back.  I like to think that she feels extra special when she’s wearing a dress I made just for her.

The boys looked pretty handsome in their store-bought ties.

And here is the whole family looking good for one small moment…

I love Easter.  And I LOVE having a cute little girl!

Evan’s New Look

Evan got glasses a few days ago. He spends about 40% of his time wearing them and 60% of his time wiping them down with the lens cloth and carefully putting them in and taking them out of the case. Last night he decided he wouldn’t wear them at school (which is the main reason for having them according to the eye doctor). At first he said he was afraid glasses aren’t allowed at school, but pretty soon the truth came out that he was afraid nobody would want to play with him.  It kind of broke my heart a little since I got glasses in 3rd grade and know the feeling of nerdiness that comes with them. Derek was really sweet about encouraging him and even told him the captain of the 2nd grade recess soccer team wears glasses and everybody wants to play with him.  Every once in awhile big brothers are good for something!  Hopefully that helped!   He picked those glasses out and stubbornly refused to even consider anything other frames, so hopefully that means he’ll wear them!

Random Tidbits

I have been bad at writing on the blog lately.  Partially because nothing seems quite exciting enough to sit down and write a full blog post about, and partly because things seem to be going 100 miles an hour over here, and I can’t keep up.

But, I thought I would catch up on a few tidbits.

My birthday was a couple weeks ago.  It was a wonderful day where my family made me feel very loved.  For my birthday, the boys decided to get me Wii remotes.  Only 3 young boys could come up with a present quite that thoughtful!  They were having a hard time keeping it a secret.  Glenn kept reminding them to not even talk to me about presents, and I kept egging them on.  At dinner that evening, one of the boys asked what we were having for dessert.  I said, “I’ll tell you if you tell me what you got me for my birthday!”  Simultaneously the older boys laughed, Glenn yelled, “No!” and Adam yelled, “remotes!”  I guess we can all see where Adam’s weakness is.  I stifled a laugh and pretended I hadn’t heard.  A few minutes later, Derek leaned over and said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t hear, Mom, because Adam spilled the beans!”  Something about the whole interaction made me laugh and feel glad that I have little boys, even if a lot of the time I feel like I’m a wild animal tamer.

We just finished Spring Break.  It more uneventful than I had anticipated.  We had one really warm day where the boys went and played in the dirt all afternoon.  I figured I could call Spring Break a success when Derek came in and said, “I think this is the first time in my entire life when I’ve longed for a bath!”  Anything that provokes a longing for bathing in an 8 year old boy must be a good thing, right?

Derek and Evan are playing soccer.  Evan is in a pee wee soccer league with players aged 4-6.  Because he is six and some of the other players are barely four and still don’t even know what a soccer ball is, Evan is really enjoying success during his soccer games.  On Saturday he scored four goals during his game.  Between juggling Amelia and the camera while trying to keep Adam and Derek entertained (Glenn coaches), I have totally failed in getting a picture of Evan in his stardom.  I always realize too late that Evan has the ball, so I try to hurry and get the camera but only manage a blurry afterthought.  Here are my best attempts.

There you have it.  Small snippets of our life lately!