A Quote from Walker

"Mommy, I love Bridgett. She makes my heart pump."

A Hint of Spring

My Christmas posts made it pretty clear that Christmas is my favorite time of year, however, early spring is a close second.  I love the way that the season makes a sudden and often unexpected turn from winter to spring, the way the sun suddenly becomes warmer and the wind loses its ability to chill you to your bones.  I love opening the curtains and letting the sun shine in and opening the windows and letting the cool spring air breathe new life into our musty, winter ridden home.  Today, with the kitchen door and window wide open, I swept and mopped the floor and listened to the kids laugh and squeal in the backyard as they ran from the onslaught of snowballs being thrown by their dad.  I did the dishes as the birds chirped and sang in our trees and was grateful for the long, cold, winter months because it helps me appreciate this little hint of spring so much.

The warmer weather also means that we resume our family walks, something that we always miss in the winter time when temperatures are too frigid to drag kiddies out in.  We had our first springtime stroll of the season this afternoon.  The kids were excited to pull out their sunglasses, hoodies and "puddle boots" and venture out into the sloppy streets.

Look Grandma and Grandpa, he's wearing his shirt!!  He even picked it himself.

iPhone Update

For the first time since we got our phone I finally imported our pictures onto the computer...all 668 of them!!!   Here are a few of my favorites.

Birthday wishes for Grandma

March 5 has been relevant for exactly 63 years today. It's a day to celebrate a woman known to many for her infectious laughter, genuine smile, and limitless compassion - a woman I have been blessed to call "mom".
She has set an example of hard work, perseverence, faith and good works for seven children, twelve grandchildren and countless others along the way. Having endured more trials in her 63 years than most people experience in a lifetime, she has always worn a smile on her face and never blamed others for her circumstance. She has given selflessly with no expectation to receive and has sought to help others even when she was the one in need of help. Truly her life has been an example of charity:

And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things...charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him (Moroni 7:45&47).
Thank you for your example Mom, I hope you know how much we love you and miss you. Happy birthday!

Catching Up

 Our laptop has been out of commission for the past week and it has been driving me crazy.  Mostly because there were so many things I wanted to blog about and couldn't.  Luckily, thanks to my clever Dad it is up and running again so I will be fitting a week's worth of posts into one.

Last week we had a huge dump of snow complete with frigid temperatures and a blizzard (and not the delicious kind with ice cream and chocolate bars).  We went from having almost no snow at all to having close to 2 feet.  Allan and I were very annoyed but Bridgett and the kids couldn't be more pleased.

As things warmed up we found that the snow had become PERFECT snowman making snow (something that we get very rarely).  So tonight, while Allan made dinner, the kids and I made a snowman.  He turned out very cute.  Walker was too busy defending the snowman from Bridgett to get a picture with him.

Emma had teacher's convention on Thursday and Friday so she got to stay home from school.  Both Walker and I were ecstatic as it meant that Walker didn't lose his favorite playmate and I didn't have to bundle three children up and drag them to the school twice. 

We stayed warm and cozy in the house watching movies and reading books and spent all Friday morning working on Emma's homework.  She had to build a castle made of 3D shapes to take to school for "sharing" on Monday.  (I love it when teachers assign projects for children that require that 80% of it be done by the parents).  We had fun anyways and Emma is so pleased with the finished product.

She knew exactly how she wanted it to look, I just had to help her figure out how to make it look that way.

Lillian is still her usual goofy self.  I am still amazed at how easy going and good natured our baby girl is.  She always has a sweet smile on her face and is happy to sit and play all by herself now, especially because she can sit up and scoot around on her own.  She is clearly very pleased with herself.

Moving

In the last week Lillian has learned how to scoot.  I doubt very much that she will be motivated to crawl because she can scoot so fast that she can get just about anywhere that she wants as quickly as she wants.  I had forgotten how the busy factor is multiplied exponentially once they start to move.  No matter how well baby-proofed a home is, with two older siblings, there is ALWAYS something on the floor that she shouldn't have.  I feel like I spend all day picking small objects off of the floor and trying to keep dog hair out of her mouth.

 

I have to take a quick second to endorse my new favorite baby invention EVER!!!  It is a mesh sucker of sorts that you can put fruit or ice or any such thing in it.  Since Lillian has started crawling it is virtually impossible for me to sit and eat unless she is asleep.  Today after leaving my lunch approximately 15 times I finally stuck Lillian in her swing and put some banana in her little mesh sucker thingy.  She was sold and so am I!!