It's been a hard days night: March 2014

Friday, March 21, 2014

A little trim...

I hadn't had a hair cut for about a year, I can't really remember the last time. I don't have a great before pictures, but I posted this one of Facebook and you can kind of see the length.

When Trisha got ready to cut she noticed she would be cutting just about 7 inches. You need 8 inches to donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. It seemed silly to just throw away all of that hair when just a little more as needed and could go to making a wig for someone in need.

So she put it in several ponies and let Emma do the honors!! She loved it!

It's a bit shorter than I planned, so that's taking getting used to, but I like it. Something totally different.

Here's the hair!

I put it in an envelope and mailed it off yesterday!

Now I just have to figure out how to style it! Not really my forte!

Friday, March 14, 2014

Happy birthday Emma (and a fun family visit)!

Emma turned 9 yesterday!! While it doesn't quite seem like yesterday that N8 experienced the "bathroom birth" it surely doesn't seem like 9 years ago!

It happened to be crazy hair day at school so she was sporting various ponies and braids and clips throughout her hair!

My sisters family arrived Wednesday evening for a visit so we tasked Anna with cupcake making for Emma's class! She did a fabulous job!

I don't think the picture quite does it justice, but those are some ORANGE cupcakes. I have never seen such vibrant frosting from a can!

Lucky for the kids it was a minimum day! So they spent the afternoon playing dressup, doing plays, riding bikes and doing sidewalk chalk! A perfect birthday!

Once N8 picked up Benjamin from school, N8, Benjamin, Anna and Jim headed out to do some geocaching in our desert!

Dominoes, orange soda and root-beer were the birthday menu.

Emma got her first set or girl LEGOs! Smelly markers, a darling kitty shirt, some spending money/gift card and nail stuff!

For our evening entertainment, Benjamin had a beginning band concert at the middle school. He did a great job!

Thrifty ice cream after was well deserved and a perfect after concert/happy birthday dessert!

As we were leaving Rite-aid we ran into Benjamin's band director!

It was a fun visit with my sister, discussing our reno plans (more on that will be coming in the future), discussing family (today marks 1 year since the passing of our mom), and trying to keep the kids clean and having fun!

Today N8 and Benjamin head out on Benjamin's 2nd 11 year old scout campout. N8 is very happy that this one will take place in an actual camping location rather than a church lawn!

Round 5...

Just after we returned from Phoenix from our New Years trip I knew. I knew that our lives were about to get turned upside down in a fabulous, wonderful and scary way! We were going to be a family of 7!!

We don't tell people right away. N8 and I kept it a "secret" discussing when we had a moment alone. I would sneak a nap in the afternoon while the kids worked on homework and they didn't seem to care or notice. I spent my evenings debating if fighting the urge to barf was better or worse than actually doing it.

Then on Monday we broke the new to the kids:

Nate was tasked with figuring out how to tell them. He turned the webcam on our TV on and we started FHE. When he told the kids Henry would be a big brother it only took Emma moments to figure it out. "Mom's having a baby!" Benjamin quickly noted "We'll fill up the van!". Yes, yes we will!

On Wednesday my sister family was coming into town for a few days. I also had an afternoon Dr appt and worried that they might arrive while I was gone. I was time to break the news to family.

After getting a look at the addition on the ultrasound and seeing all was well and looking good, I came home and N8 and I started making phone calls. He called his dad, I called mine and the news was out. We continued to call (or text) family and N8 edited the video for Facebook to share with the rest of our family and friends.

It's nice not to harbor our joy and excitement.

I'm kind of freaked out about having 5 children. How will we fit, will I have have "me time" again, will this baby be a sleeper. But we know this will be awesome, Emma loves the idea that maybe, just maybe she'll get a sister (we won't know until the middle of April), babies bring such joy and will complete our family!

So, we're in for round 5!

Sept 2014 is going to be a crazy one!

Goodbye to some awesome Elders

2 weeks ago we had 2 pretty awesome elders get transferred out of our area.

Elder Mallory (the cross-eyed elder) had been in Ridgecrest since September, the very beginning of his mission. He grew a ton and our family and ward grew to love him.

We also lost Elder Dirzo. We was funny, and full of love for the Gospel and the Spanish speakers in the area. As he left he asked for us to pray that he will get transferred back to Ridgecrest :) He might find other areas just as wonderful, but probably not!

The new elders are just as great, jumping into the work here, but these guys sure make the work awesome here!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Jr Olympics

Each year the school has a field day. They call it Jr Olympics. They have several running racings: 800m, 400m and 100yd dash. They also do discus, shot-put, long jump, softball throw, parachute, sponge relay, etc.

I knew Emma had signed up to do the 800m, 400m, and the long jump (3-5 graders get to sign up for 3 events).

I failed to realize that he 800m was the day before the actual Jr Olympics, so I missed Emma's run. I was told she started out 2nd to last and stayed that way until the last lap, keep a steady pace the entire time. One by one the other racers tuckered out and she won the race!

On Friday I knew I wouldn't be able to volunteer to help with the various activities since Henry would be less than helpful. So I volunteered to help with food for the volunteers! I was asked to bring 15-18 sandwiches. So, I spent the morning making sandwiches and missed Emma doing her 400m and long jump! By the time I got there I was able to hang with Mo's class doing the parachute

Emma's class doing the parachute:

Emma's class waiting for other students to do shot-put and discus. The waiters started up a game of duck, duck, goose and loved having Henry play along.