My kids are ADoRaBLe!

I don't like to brag but, how can i help it with these three cuties!!
We had a great Easter weekend. We partied for three days. I will post more pictures later.

What I Did Over Spring Break

according to Emma: "Go camping, make a robot, and . . .i don't know."

according to Morgan: "Camping." (me: What else?) "Um, nothing else i think. . . .Oh, made a robot" (not a "really alive one", just out of our recycling).On a wonderful, warm Sunday walk with our family

We had a great spring break. Morgan was out of school for a whole 10 days! We didn't do anything really big but i tried to make it special without being too crazy. We ate at the "rest-aur-ant" (McDonald's), went on walks, watched movies, and played skeeball and whack-a-mole at the mall arcade. And of course we went camping. It was really fun. We just went to the State Park near our house and had a wonderful time. It was alot of work getting things ready and camp set up but by the morning i was so happy to be there. I am so thankful to have a husband who knows how to camp and is happy to do the work it requires. It was the first trip with our new tent and the maiden voyage of our canoe. Exciting stuff.

Happy cute Talmage all bundled up for a cold night. He did great! Out on the lake in our very own canoe. (Come on Grandma Chele, you know you want to come out with us!) Tired Talmage in a floatation chariot. After breaking camp we went on a hike with some friends who came up for the day. We found two old rusted out cars along the trail. Morgan got a tick on the hike which was one of his most "exciting" things that happened. As i looked at our pictures i realize that there is nothing that makes me feel more like a real live family than camping does. (did that sentence make sense?) Maybe because camping was such a wonderful part of my growing up life. It feels fabulous to be a family on a camp-out. (You can ask my friend, Sarah, if you want to know the 25 reasons why this is true.) What a cute family!

Anyway it was a great week, but it was fine to have it over too. By the end, Morgan had decided that school is more fun than Spring Break so i guess it was time to go back and our house needed a little attention too. Hope you all had/are having, or will have a great Spring Break too.

We Three Kings of Oklahoma

He wore these giant gloves for "Glove day" at school.

Morgan loved his Dr. Seuss week at school and has been begging for green eggs and ham every day . (We made blue french toast but it just wasn't good enough. He is developing a little boy sense of humor. He thinks burping and underwear are hilarious. (He doesn't often burp himself but thinks it is pretty funny in a book or from someone else.) Morgan will happily listen to Magic Tree house books for hours (if i let him). He often tells us new facts that he has learned from them. He and Emma are planning a trip soon. According to them we are going to paddle our canoe across the Atlantic ocean so we can go see the Eiffel tower. Anyone want to join us?

Here she is wearing pajamas from her cousin that are two sizes too big and because it is hard to decide which pink jammies to wear, she put an extra pair of pajama pants on her head

What do Angelina Jolie, the octuplet mom and our Emma have in common? Full, pouty lips. Emma has developed a pouty lip face. Most often she uses them to pout but sometimes it is just a deep thinking face. It is not flattering. The other day she asked me if we could go live by the "Hoowas". I was racking my brain to figure out what friends she might be talking about until she said, "Yea, so then i could learn to do a "hoowa" dance. Ah! She wants to live in Hawaii and dance the hula. Fine by me. Anyone have a job for us there?

What a cutie! Just look at those eyelashes.

Talmage is now four months old. Wow! He is now rolling around quite a bit. He is not a big fan of the hardwood floors in our house. He continues to be very social. He is so smiley and loves to laugh. He loves being tickled and thinks getting his clothes off for a diaper change is very funny. He still isn't sleeping very consistently but we have hope that this stage will pass one day (if it doesn't we may have to send him to live with his non-sleeping cousins). The kids sure love him and always want to hold him and talk to him. He gets ample attention around here.

People

Lately i have had some good, soul-inspiring conversations with different people. All these people are of different ages, and come from different experiences, and all of them have taught me. It makes me grateful to have good people surrounding me, in-town or online or on the phone. I am thankful for all the fabulous people who inspire me with every interaction. I am blessed with people who make me feel good about who i am while still inspiring me to become much, much better. Thank you to all of you. I hope to keep learning from you and to become like you.

Craft Tag

Show us your latest project whether it is completed or still in progress. Show-off a little and inspire other bloggers with new ideas.

This is my latest completed project. (Come on. Come on out, don't be afraid.) This just a test prototype and isn't perfect but i was happy with how it turned out. It was a fun project to design and i got to try out some new quilting skills on a very small scale. I pieced the top of the shell out of scraps in just a random pattern which was a new fun process. I machine quilted the top. I have never done stippling before, i still need alot more practice.
Sadly our little friend is still nameless. Feel free to leave name ideas in your comments. She is a little slow to warm up. But eventually she comes totally out of her shell. (Sorry i had to add those puns).
So that's my little project. I can't wait see everybody else's. I tag Michal, Kamrah, Joy, Debbie, my mom, Katie, and anyone else who reads this blog.
Happy crafting!

Update

Yesterday we took all the kids in for their overdue check-ups. They all did well. We like our new doctor. Talmage got the most shots with three. Morgan had two shots and got his ears cleaned out (not at all a pleasant experience) and Emma got away with just one shot.
Talmage now weighs 11 lbs. 3 oz. Meaning he has gained exactly four pounds since birth, just over one pound per month of his life.
















Both the older kids are now officially tall enough to ride the Star Tours ride at Disneyland.
Morgan is 42 1/2 in. tall and weighs 37 lbs.












Emma is 40 1/2 in. tall and weighs 35 lbs. (exactly two inches shorter and two pounds lighter than Morgan.)

cold hard cash

First we'd like to report that we survived our first ice storm last week. I was lucky enough to have left early to pick up Morgan from school so i didn't end up having to drive in the worst of it. CoP let all their employees off two hours early but Nate only got home about 10 min. earlier than normal. He had to drive really slow and found that some roads were closed and then ended up leaving his car and walking the last mile home. He watched several cars spin out in front of him and knew it was no use trying to get to the top of the hill in his car.
Minus the driving we thought it was pretty cool. We all went out to "ice skate" on our patio. The kids and i got a whole collection of ice leaves by carefully peeling the ice later off of our plants. They were really cool. We had a fun time and Morgan enjoyed the next two days off from school.
After the storm there was a total swing in the weather and we enjoyed beautiful sunshiney days for the weekend. On Saturday the kids were playing outside and they found a snail shell. They rang the back doorbell to get my attention and when i went out we had this conversation:
Morgan:"Look, a snail shell. Can we sell this for two dollars and sixty cents?"
Me: "That would be fun, but i don't think that anyone will buy it for that much."
Emma:"But we need to."
Me:"Really. Why do you need to?"
Morgan: "So we can get lots of money."
Emma: "Yeah, we need lots of money."
Me: "What do you need lots of money for?"
Emma: "So we can buy lots of dolls and other things."
Now Morgan could tell that this wasn't quite the right answer so he piped in with this response: "Cause tithing? So we can pay lots of tithing."
I thought it was pretty funny. I guess at least they have a righteous desire to pay tithing.