Funny girl

I learned something today. Jessa and I were reading Dr. Seuss's, "Hop on Pop" this morning. She was listening quietly until we got to the page that says,

"HOP

POP

We like to hop.

We like to hop

on top of Pop.

STOP

You must not hop on Pop."

Then Jessa informed me, "You tan, (can), hop on Momma".

I've been warned.

Love, love, love those kiddos! Will and Jessa are outside right now. There's lots of screaming. I go check every few minutes to make sure nobody's being eaten by a bear, but this last time I discovered Will with my fall scarecrow he found ? somewhere ?. It is larger than he is, but that did not stop him from chasing his sister with it. Hence, the screaming. . . Just got back from another check. No longer chasing Jessa, wait, I just saw the straw hair bounce by the window again. I told him it is a scareCROW, not a scareJESSA. All he said was, "It works on Jessa's too."

Emily has become very mobile the last few weeks. She is eight months old now and not crawling, but ROLLING. She rolls to wherever it is she wants to be - to whatever it is she wants to retrieve. It reminds me of the old "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" movie when Violet turns into a blueberry and the Oompa-Loompa's roll her away. She rolls with as much ease. :)

Jeff installed our over-the-range microwave two days ago. I have used it a total of 0 times. Don't want to get it dirty just yet. It looks so nice and clean right now!

Easter

The weekend before Easter, we went down to school where the Lady Lions hosted an Easter carnival for the kids. It was lots of fun for them from decorating cookies to painting Easter sun catchers to pictures with the Easter Bunny himself. Then on Monday, we colored eggs for family home evening. Jessa is not quite 3 so this is all still kinda new for her and she is loving it. We colored 1 dozen eggs that night and 2 of them didn't even make it into the fridge. The kids both ate one immediately. The next day, Will had a hard boiled egg for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After that he admitted to being "sick of them". :) Then on Friday, my brother's little girl came up to spend the holiday weekend with us. The bunny came on Saturday and left some goodies and some shovel and bucket toys. When it was time to bring everything inside, we discovered that the sun had melted the girls chocolate bunnies right in the packages so we did an emergency bunny operation and stuck 'em in the freezer over night. They still tasted good, but they looked pretty sad. Sunday, we had regional conference at church for 2 hours. The kids looked very cute all dressed up in the Easter duds. I kept busy that afternoon mixing up some scratch mint chocolate brownies to take to the family Easter dinner at Jeff's parents that evening. (They turned out REALLY yummy!) The kids played with cousins all afternoon and evening and dinner was delicious as always. After dinner, Grandma Gene and Tracy set up an egg hunt out in the yard. It was a very nice Easter.

Getting Older

In just a few weeks I will leave 20-hood behind. 30 is staring me hard in the face. The country song, 'My Next 30 Years' goes through my mind making me wonder if I've made the most of my life up to this point. I hope so. I know there's a lot more for me to do. I look forward to them, (my next 30), with hopeful anticipation. Here's some of the good stuff from the last few.

My Family

2009. Jeff and I have been married for 10 years. A whole decade! I have learned so much about life and love in those ten years. They have also brought us our most precious and priceless blessings. Will just turned 5 in February. Jessa will be 3 next month and our baby, Emily, is 7 months. I LOVE being a mother. It is THE greatest. So much work, but the payback far exceeds the price of any sacrifice. They fill my heart. My understanding of God's love for me is made clearer because of them. It has become my work and my glory to help them build testimonies of Christ and live good, righteous lives. Not tryin' to sound "oh-so-holy" or anything, 'cuz "oh-so-NOT"!! (You know it.) Just grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life, my family, and my blessings.

Here I Go!

I feel a little like I'm trying to learn a foreign language, but have felt compelled for about a week now to begin a documentation of my little family and the daily in's and out's using a blog. I feel like an intruder even typing that word. Blog. Like it's a special club with exclusive rights or something. Silly, huh? So here I go.