March of Dimes and a childhood tradition

We participated in the March for Babies last Saturday. Joe came along this time and we pushed all three kids in strollers. They all did great and we made it the whole 6 miles. We even sprinted the last little bit because Elizabeth really had to go to the bathroom. :)

Here are some of the pictures:

We were dressed too warmly. It was hot!

We forgot to get a picture of me until we had already started.
This one is mid-walk while trying not to slow down the people behind us.

Old Town Sacramento
(didn't notice the sign when I took this!)

They especially enjoyed some free See's suckers:

Thank you to everyone who donated!

After the walk, Joe went to work/study and I finally fulfilled my promise of helping Elizabeth set up a lemonade stand. This was her brain child. It was even her idea to donate the money to charity after she read about that in a magazine. She had been pestering me for days and we kept forgetting to buy cups at the store. We finally made it happen. We sold some cookies and some really good strawberry lemonade (I kind of didn't want to sell it).

Our neighbor friend Jaden helped us.
He was actually quite good at attracting customers by yelling his loudest at passing cars.

This shows Elizabeth's sign with the price--50 cents

We don't have any folding tables so I taped up a box and covered it with a beach towel (nice, right?). Every time a car was in sight, Elizabeth would run over and kneel behind the box like so:

She was quite the stand manager.

After all was said and done and the lemonade was gone, they had $14 in their money bowl. She decided to donate it to help Haiti.

Although it took some work, I loved the whole experience. I need to be a fun mom more often.

200

I looked as I was writing this and realized that this is my 200th post! In honor of this momentous occasion. . . . . . here is more of the usual. :)

No really, though. Two hundred is a lot and I'm proud of myself for sticking with this long enough to get there.

I just wanted to record some more events from our lives lately.

Joe and Natalie went out together the other night so it was just Lizzie, Nate and I at home. We had great fun. We need to be better about having more one-on-one (or one-on-two) time with the kids.

How lucky am I to get to spend the night with these two?

Elizabeth and I posed for a picture and this is what came of it:

I had no idea she was making that face.

It reminded me of pictures like this. . .

. . .and countless others.
Like father like daughter. :)

That night we were playing Set and as we were looking for matches she said, "I'm keeping a sharp eye!" She has been using all sorts of funny phrases lately. One day I was looking at some clothes online and she came up and asked, "Do you see any that interest you?" I don't know where she learns these.

The other day Joe was asking her to do something and she kind of sighed and said, "If you exist. . ." (instead of "if you insist").

Here's a shot of my thumb for any of you gruesome types who enjoy this sort of thing:

About 5 more days until the stitches can come out. It doesn't even hurt anymore, except for when Nathaniel occasionally uses his strong little fingers to grip my finger right on the cut.

And finally, we have some news. We decided recently that Joe is going to be doing an international study in Ghana for a month this summer. He'll be going alone around the end of May. It will be hard but I'm excited for Joe to get to have the opportunity. Thank goodness for Skype! We'll definitely be making use of that while he's gone.

This is what comes from trying to do good...

I'm just kidding, of course. That should say: "This is what comes from hurrying in the kitchen..."

I've been doing a little dinner/bake sale locally to raise money for March of Dimes. Last night, I had scheduled to make two pans of enchiladas. I was actually really proud of myself for being organized and getting things done ahead of time so it wasn't too stressful when dinner time came. I was going to have everything ready on time. Pretty good, for me.

When it came down to it, I was still hurrying to get a few things finished for the first meal. In my haste, I cut my hand on a can of chicken broth. I could tell it was bad when I could see something white in the cut. I don't even know what that was but it scared me. I've never had a deep cut like that (if you don't count a c-section, which I have never had to see open, thank goodness). Anyway, the blessing of it all was that my hand never really hurt. I kept waiting for it to start really hurting but it never did. It helped me stay calm and get things done.

So, I called Joe who left studying to come rescue me. He came right home so I could go find an urgent care place. Not only that--he took over cooking and finished and delivered everything for me! What a guy. :)

I got three stitches, a tetanus shot, and a hugely-wrapped hand which I have to keep dry for 10 days. The pain started after the numbness wore off but it hasn't been too bad. I just hope I can keep from re-opening it. The use of a thumb, even a left thumb, is the sort of thing I really take for granted. Trying to take care of 3 kids without it requires some creativity.

So, that's my adventure... hopefully a lesson was learned.

On a happier note, here are some other updates:

I got to go see my good friend Jessica's new little baby last week. She was so tiny and adorable. I can't believe Nate was ever that small.

Baby Sienna

I got the girls their first nightgowns.
They love them, of course:

Here are some pictures taken by Elizabeth on a lazy Sunday afternoon...

Daddy and his girls playing a game:

The game's not going her way, I guess

An album we have out for decoration.

I know, I know--we look like little kids. That because we were! (are?)

Then she turned her lens on Nate and I...

Here I am trying to write the traditional Sunday family letter

I like this one:

Later on that night, I got this one of Daddy tickling Nathaniel:

Pure happiness!

It's that time again...

If you've visited my blog recently, you've probably noticed the button for March of Dimes on the side. It's time for the March for Babies, again. This is my 4th year participating! It's a great organization that works to help prevent premature birth. If you'd like to donate, you can click on the button and it will take you to my secure personal fund-raising site. If you'd like to see why this is so important to me (and you don't already know), you can click on the button and then the link "see more at my blog" which tells about our experiences with prematurity. Thank you so much!

Dance Class

The girls both wrapped up their 12 weeks of dance classes recently and they had an open house for the parents to come see what they learned. Joe couldn't make it (he did get to watch them once during his spring break) so I braved it alone. So, when considering the poor quality of these pictures, take into account that I was holding a grabby baby in one arm while shooting. :)

Natalie was in a class called First Steps where they mostly just had fun moving around with scarves, maracas, etc.
You may notice in the above picture that there is a gigantic hole in Natalie's tights. I promise it was tiny when I put them on her that morning. AND, these were the more expensive, supposedly durable tights I had just bought her a few weeks before. Anyway, when we got to the studio and I opened her door to unbuckle her, she had as much of her hand as she could fit in that hole. So frustrating...

Back to the pictures. I love the way she skips. She can only seem to lift her right knee when skipping but it is so cute.

Falling down...

...but getting back up

Elizabeth was in a beginning ballet and tap class.

I love this one: so serious...

Reach for your star!

She loved it.

Here's the only decent tap picture I got:

They did a couple of cute routines. It was so funny, though, because Elizabeth sang SO loudly. You know, that yelling kind of singing. At least she knew most of the words and was singing out! Some of the other kids just sat there.

Anyway, they both had a good experience. My poor kids have my coordination/gracefulness (none, that is) so nothing really came very easy but they both tried their hardest and loved being little ballerinas.

Now they are starting a class with their friends taught by a friend of mine out of the goodness of her heart. She is a saint, seriously. They are excited to be able to keep dancing.

Maybe I'm weird, but sometimes the girlyness of my girls bothers me. I was pretty much a tomboy and so I guess I just expected them to be like me. I hated wearing anything pink. I hated having my hair done (I guess that's pretty much every little girl). I wanted my hair in a ponytail every day. I don't remember caring much about clothes. Of course I had an older brother so I guess that influenced me.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, loves clothes and shopping and actually remembers, down to minute details, the clothes her friends have worn. Natalie is such a little princess and loves to twirl around in her princess dress-ups to Disney songs.

I was thinking about this recently and I remembered a day not too long ago when I had actually curled my hair (a rarity). Joe didn't say anything about it (Haha--don't feel bad, Joe) but when the girls both saw me they mentioned right away that they loved my hair and that I looked beautiful. They do the same if I wear a shirt I haven't worn in awhile, too.

I thought to myself, maybe girly daughters aren't so bad. :)

Birthday/Easter/Conference weekend

We had a wonderful Easter/General Conference weekend. It was actually kind of a long weekend since my birthday was last Thursday. The big 2-6! It was great. Joe made me an awesome birthday dinner and the girls were in celebration mode all day. Elizabeth even made my bed and decorated my room with balloons. Joe set up a night out Friday night, too. We left all three behind for the first time in awhile and Nate did great, apparently. I wish our time out had gone better, though. We had a nice dinner at P.F. Chang's and within about a half hour of eating we were both sick in the bathrooms at Target. After about an hour we had pulled ourselves together enough to get home. Yuck. Not the best end to the night. I don't think we'll be going back there for awhile. Anyway, enough about that...

We dyed some Easter eggs on Saturday:

Funny sidenote: While we were dying the eggs, the girls kept saying how fun it was and of course they enjoyed eating them, too. Then, when Easter morning came and Natalie saw the plastic eggs in her basket with candy inside she said, "These eggs are way better than dyed eggs!" It's so cute how they are still young enough to not really remember much from the year before and so everything is fun and exciting. I'll be sad when that's not the case anymore.

We had our sunrise devotional Easter morning. Even though it was too cloudy to see the sun, it was still so fun to snuggle up under blankets outside, watch the sky get lighter and lighter and read from the scriptures about the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. What a great way to start the day.

Unfortunately, my cinnamon rolls turned out horribly again. One of these days I will get it right!

We went to my Mom and Dad's to meet up with the CA crowd for Conference and my Dad's famous omelets. Conference was amazing, as always, with so much good counsel on teaching children and on family relationships. Very much needed for me!

We even had an egg hunt between sessions. Thanks to Uncle Brad and the older cousins for hiding eggs and helping the little ones.

A few eggs still unclaimed:

I love this action shot:

Grandma and Nate watching from the safety of the house:

Cute Lily

Enjoying the chewy spoils:

My Dad made a cake for the early April birthdays: my sister and I, and our niece Lily.

We love getting together with family. Thanks everyone!

Green eggs and other thoughts

We actually celebrated St. Patrick's Day for the first time in our family (aside from just wearing green) by eating green eggs. I had to take a picture to commemorate it.

I love how the picture turned out, too:

Despite appearances, they loved the green eggs.

I also must make it clear that I had virtually nothing to do with Natalie reading. This was made more clear to me as I was reading this:

Yay! We got our blog book and I love it.

Anyway, back to Natalie. I was reading through and remembered a few things that I had forgotten. Before she could even walk, Natalie would bring us books for us to read to her--she would army crawl to us while trying to keep a book in her hands. Granted, she didn't walk until 16 months but still. Also, I had forgotten that one of Natalie's favorite activities used to be telling Elizabeth letters to draw and watching her draw them. Seriously, these kids are amazing in their love for letters, reading, etc. I feel like I don't do enough to help them learn more since the desire has always been there. Natalie knew all of her letters before she was even 2 and that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Elizabeth, Super Why, and the magnet letters on our fridge. It certainly helps that she has a competitive fire that makes her always want to keep up with Lizzie.

Here's a cute picture I had to post:

The girls are both such a help with Nathaniel. They have never complained (so far) when I ask them to go play with him if he's getting fussy. They love him to pieces and love to make him laugh. He is such a hair-puller, which kind of drives me crazy, but Elizabeth just laughs it off like in the picture. He, of course, loves them right back and it is a rare occasion that I can get him to laugh as much as they can. It is so cute.

I need to post a better "Nate update" (ha!) soon but for now I'll just say that he is already an active little boy! He grabs hair, faces, anything he can get his hands on. He is always moving and he's so much more active than the girls were. It's already nearly impossible to change him or get him dressed. He rolls and rolls and is starting to sit up pretty well. He's such a sweetheart and we all adore him.

More Weekend Fun

We also went to the beach again. We found a pretty fun one that had some tide pools that Joe took the kids to explore. They found a bunch of starfish and this dead crab that was completely in tact. We had to get some pictures with it...

I love Nate's face in this one:

Joe wanted me to pose with it...

...and while we were taking that picture, this happened:

This beach trip wasn't as relaxing since Nathaniel spent the whole time trying to roll off the towels and eat sand.

We also got to eat dinner with some friends who we hadn't seen since our Wymount days.

Here's all the kids:
(I stole your picture, Steph, since ours didn't turn out as well)

We also got to see our friends the Macks from Wymount and my brother and his family but, sadly, we didn't get any pictures of those visits. Thanks for feeding us everyone! It was so much fun to see all of you guys.

It was a fun little trip and mostly just fun spending time together as a family.