One exciting night

We started off easy, with a dinner of chili and cornbread and then the excitement started. At 6:00 we had our first pack meeting with the scouts. Hans and I are the new Weeblos leaders. I know NOTHING about scouts and the customs, traditions, process, ANYTHING and HAns swears he can't remember much seeing as how that was 15-20 years ago. So we are in a pretty pickle. Anyway. When the old leaders gave us the books and name lists and stuff on Tuesday, they casually told us we were in charge of a skit on Thursday night. Lovely. Not only did we not have any idea of who any of our boys were, but we were supposed to get them to do a skit for us!? To my surprise, our two boys that showed up were more than willing to help and seem like very sweet, well behaved nine year olds; which surprised me because I didn't think there was such a thing. But we learned a little bit here and there and truthfully, I am a little excited, I think this will be fun.
So then Hans took the boys home and I went to a prepardness class. Um, I wouldn't call it that really. IT was more like a scare you to death- you better get prepared class. It was so horrifying! I learned a little bit but got scared a whole lot. MAybe that's a good thing so I will get spurred into action. I arrive home and ask where Gabe was and HAns said he was in the spare room watching his movie and to check his puncture wound. I was not prepared for what I saw. Gabe's bandaid on his forehead was still oozing blood everywhere, up in his hair even. So I tear off the bandaid and there truly is a hole in my son's head! I about freaked. It was a little hole, but it was sill bleeding two hours after it had happened! I guess he had somehow slipped off the bed and into the leg of the church table and hence the deep hole in his poor little head. I rebandaged him and put that elasticy turnicat stuff and wound it around his head to apply more pressure so the bleeding would stop and so I could not worry as much. We've only had scrapes and bruises at our house, so this was major trauma(ok- there was only trauma on my part).

I LOVE EASTER

Easter and THanksgiving are my personal favorite holidays. I'm not sure why THanksgiving, other than all the food and family which are always a good combination. Easter I love the traditions, the feeling of humility and love that we get to feel when we are constantly reminded of the Savior's life and death and ressurection. We have the simple Easter traditions right now, but I hope to expand the older then kids get. We color eggs of course. My mom made little sets of a dozen plastic eggs filled with small scriptures retelling the process of the Atonement and the ressurection, and tiny objects that related to each scrupiture. that the boys love doing. They learn while having fun- although I must say, they spent more time fighting about who got to open which egg than listening to the scriptures. We decided to skip the city egg hunt, becuase I didn't think it would be too fun watching kids fight over eggs and listen to screaming kids who didn't find anything. After we got through with the morning egg hunt in the living room, we went to work. Really. Hans finished the Master closet, since I finally got it stained and finished, he could put it together. And while he did that, I shoveled dirt. A lot of dirt. I'm proud to announce the callouses are back and I was able to shovel for four hours without a single blister! While we worked the kids loved to play in the dirt with their new buckets and shovels the Easter Bunny brought to them. Me and the boys got our first tans of the season, it was so sunny and warm and wonderful! Yet another reason to love Easter, it means good weather is coming to stay soon! We hope you all had a great Easter time!

Easter Extraveganza!

St. Patrick's Day!

We had such a fun GREEN day this year. We started off early with green pancakes which the boys loved. Gabe has really gotten into any holiday and thinks they are all factastic and it helps that he believes anything that we tell him. For example, his Grandma Lovell created a storybook about her and Grandpa catching a leprachaun which was so cute. Gabe fell in love with it. HE even brought it to school for his turn with the sharing bag. SInce reading that little story he had been wanting to hunt and catch a leprachaun just like Grandpa. So, after he got home from school on St. Patty's Day, leprachaun catching we went. As Gabe told me, "Left then right, into the forest." We drove up the canyon a little ways until the trees were a little thicker. I had brought along a few gold leprchaun coins to hide, so at least the boys could find SOMETHING, and dropped them out of my pocket as we wandered down the snowey trail. I bet people driving up the canyon were wondering what a mother and her two kids were doing walking 20 feet from the rode in 6 inches of snow, but hey, let them wonder! Gabe was disappointed that there were no leprachauns, he concluded that we had the wrong forest and said something about not having a rainbow, so at least he thought there were other reasons for not finding a little green elf man other than they don't exist. I love the way a child's mind thinks. We did however find the river. Gabe said that must be where the leprachaun takes tubs. Funny child. Hiett just came along for the ride I think, but he had fun finding his money too.
LAter than night after a stange meal of corned beef and cabbage we played pin the hat on the leprachaun where I discovered my children are born cheaters. Wonderful. Then we played a simplified BINGO or "LUCK" for our purposes with colors and the few numbers that Gabe knows. We took pictures of the fun we had, but I had forgotten to put the card back into the camera, whoops. We topped off the night with eating green frosted cupcakes. Does life get any better than this? I am so glad that my mom did such fun stuff for us every holiday and made all of them special in some way, because it really is so much more fun to do all sorts of silly stuff and make each little holiday a huge event. THanks mom. I'm sure my boys thank you too.

All settled in!

We sat down the other night and ordered stuff for landscaping. I am so totally excited. Honestly. I love this time of year, the planning, the anticipation of seeing the first sprouts green up. I LOVE Spring! We ordered some native grass seed to replenish the parts of the property that had been run over with too many trucks and tractors. I also had Hans get high desert wildflowers to sprinkle at random over our dirt so that we will look like a meadow instead of a flood plain. I am excited to see how this will turn out. ANd of course we got our seeds for our garden so we can start our grow light this week probably! HOw much fun am I allowed to have?
We got to talk in church yesterday. Can I say exciting? Usually we have Kima nd SHarisa watch the boys while we do things like this, but they had something else planned so we toughed it out. WOW. All I can say is embarrassing. I might have a few new embarassing moments. I tried to help Gabe walk out of the Chapel at the beginning becasue he was not listening or behaving. My hand slipped, he lost his footing and fell into the wall with a loud crash and he starts wailing. I'm sure the congregation that couldn't see what had happened thought I had spanked him then and there. The people that could see probably thought that it looked like I threw him into the wall, becasue that is what it looked like. AHHHHH. They'll be calling child protective services on me. When we finally returned from that fiasco, everything went well until half way through HAns' talk, I heard a rather loud," Mom, I'm going pee!" I turn horrified as my kid is half way down the stairs. As I get up to go with him, he says again even louder where he is going. A few people chuckled, many more were grinning at him. I smiled too, rather weakly probably, and left with my children, with the idea of never coming back again. The ward was rather understanding and told me story after story of embarassing shildren moments that helped me feel better and maybe I will go back to church after all.