Just cuz I forgot to post these pics last week

FYI

Did you know that roly polys have 14 legs, their eyes are right by their antennas, and they enjoy eating strawberries along with other dead plants?

That's what our lesson was about for FHE tonight. My kids, especially Kyle, are ENTHRALLED with bugs. He finds them and makes them our family pets, which is great with me because I don't have to clean up any poop or buy pet food. Although I do feel guilty everytime they find a new "pet". It's only a matter of time before they are killed with love.

This week

Still carpe-dieming it. This week was busy getting loan stuff and things moving to buy the house. I took the kids to have lunch with Oma one afternoon. Friday we had a birthday party at my parent's home, and it was so great because Jared was visiting from Chicago. I seriously love my family.

Saturday morning, we left early for a home show at the expo center. My daughter completely warmed my heart in the morning by choosing to eat oatmeal instead of captain crunch. Woah! My son is the opposite. At the expo show, he was a sugar-master, going up to each booth and sweetly asking for a piece of candy, and then either stuffing it in his mouth or in a bag, like he was trick-or-treating. Working the system.

We then headed to my Aunt and Uncles for a barbecue and then to the Tulip Festival for Dutch days. It was so fun to hang out with the Dodenbiers and enjoy the beautiful flowers. My Oma brought a little Dutch dress, and Bekah dressed up like a dress girl. She even won a box of cookies in a Dutch dressup contest.

After that, we stopped at IKEA to have dinner, put the kids in the playland, and look at some of the stuff. Then we stopped at Grandma Bassett's to visit her another hour. Then Rob and I snuggled at home to watch NCIS before bed.

Best of all, thanks to free tickets (thanks Aunt Wendy) & sales, the whole day cost us $10. Doesn't get better than that, does it?

Last week

"Daddy, what day is it?" The kids asked yesterday.
"Saturday."
"Then why aren't you at work?" They asked all confused.

Yes, we have a Dad back. Whoohoo! And we have been carpe-dieming it every weekend.

Last weekend, my kids slept over at Gamma and Gamps for the night and we went to dinner with the Franklins. Fantastic.

Then Saturday morning, while the kids went to a museum with my parents, Rob and I went house hunting (and found a house we liked... miracle of miracles!), Then we picked the kids up and went to the Gateway to check out the new iPad and let the kids play in the fountains. So perfect!

The next morning, we headed to temple square to enjoy the beautiful flowers before church. Stunning.

Oh, and did I mention that we have a house under contract? An hour after seeing a house we loved, we found out that they had received an offer. We put in ours, and won. So in about a month, we will finally have a house. And a garage (actually, a 3-car). We are thrilled. We saw the house on the same day that we got a letter from Rob's advisor that all of his edits on his dissertation were good, and he is done writing!

How do you know when they love you?

Yesterday, my dad gave each of the kids a few teddy grahams and then asked them if he should have a few teddy grahams, too.

Kyle had been so hungry that he had immediately snarfed down his crackers. But when his Gamps asked about eating teddy grahams, Kyle misunderstood the question. Without saying a word, the hungry boy stopped, spit out the last partially chewed teddy graham and longingly handed it to my dad.

That's love.

Best moment of the day:

laying in my daughter's bed with both kids snuggled up on either side, reading a book.

Bekah is actually starting to read! It is so fun! For the past 6 months, she has been part of a study where we get to use a free computer program as a learning program. She plays games and does activities on the computer each day. She loves it and it has been so perfect for her! It fits her learning style and it is so educational, even I feel comfortable with her playing computer games. She has even learned things that I would never have thought to teach, like syllables, nursery rhymes, and stories about different scientists. Which is really good, because I know I mentioned earlier how hard it is sometimes for me to sit down and teach her. She is a smart girl... we just have very different learning styles. It's been perfect for us. Too bad it costs about $500 to buy the program so she can continue to use it next year. Kyle enjoys doing it, too, but is not so interested as Bekah. What a blessing!

Isn't it completely amazing to hear a child learn to read... sound out letters and then excitedly put them together to make sounds! Even Kyle is writing letters, and asks me constantly what khhhhht or mmhlllbbbbx spells. What an amazing stage we are at!

What can this little eraser not clean?

I found yet another reason why the magic eraser is truly magical. It is absolutely a WONDER scrubbing the scum off of tubs. I've tried all sorts of stuff, and this just wipes it off! What can't this little thing do?

I could almost hear an audible gasp of past generations of women watching from heaven saying, "What I would have given for one of those Magic Erasers during my life time!"

Which brings me to my Perfect Moment today.
"Why are you bothering cleaning that?" my husband asked as I scrubbed the soap scum off the tub. "It'll only come back."

"Because it's gross."

"It'll end up looking the same in 2 weeks. It hasn't gotten worse since we moved here."

"That's because I clean it." Gosh it made me laugh, bless his heart.

my blessing

My Perfect moment on Sunday: watching my husband join together with other men to bless a baby. We were invited to Charity and Jeremy Smith's blessing of London. Watching my husband join in and feeling his faith and goodness... I respect him so much. We have had an interesting couple days, and what I love about him is that even when things are difficult, he is full of faith to accept the will of God. That and he always has a joke on hands. He can be teary and still come up with a silly joke. I absolutely love it.

Skiing

Rob and I took the kids skiing yesterday. It was SO FUN!

We did the rope tow a couple times and then headed in for hot chocolate.

A perfect moment! I always hesitate doing winter sports because it is cold, but this was perfect.

Look at these happy faces. And just for the record, Kyle and I did not fall... we just sat down to rest.

Playing at the park

I was recently reminded of my own human frailty. Today, as in answer to that, I attended a women's conference that discussed "the Key to Happiness is to celebrate the day - serving with love and a grateful heart."

In my effort to live in the moment, I decided to try and find a perfect moment each day. This afternoon, we went to the park as a family and did some geocaching. My son found a box elder bug, which he promptly adopted as a pet, and soon found other bugs for a mama and daddy. My daughter can now do the monkey bars all by herself. My son tried the climbing wall even though he was pretty nervous. One thing I love about my husband is that he always has fun. No sitting on the sidelines watching kids. So we all played chase, we all climbed the climbing wall, swung on swings, laughed, and enjoyed the beautiful day. Carpe Diem!

Illumination

"The ability to qualify for, receive and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life."
---Sister Beck

I've been so thankful for personal revelation lately. We seem to have needed a lot of direction, and I've been grateful that it is always there. I have been thinking of Abraham... how he sought light and knowledge to know the nature of God. Not just guidance over the trials he was facing. But stretching beyond his own circle of concern to want to know God himself. That is powerful.

Easter Marathon

Since I have half-given up on my idea of running a half-marathon this summer (seeing as I haven't run in almost 2 weeks), I compensated by making Easter weekend a marathon.

Friday afternoon we were going to go skiing with the kids (last minute there was a power outage at Alta) but ended up going home for a couple hours, then my mission reunion. Saturday was an Easter carnival, then up to the Franklin's to watch conference. Then I went to dinner with my mom and sisters while Rob and his dad went to Priesthood. We spent the night at the Franklins, had an Easter breakfast and egg hunt Sunday morning, watched conference, ran home to pick up our second car, drove up to my mom's for lunch and conference, then I ran to work afterwards while Rob took the kids home. Phew. Busy, but you know what, it was wonderful! I am so thankful to be able to be with family, even if that means running a bit.

Just braggin'

If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. ~Haim Ginott

Bear with me as I brag a moment. We were in the children's museum (on a 5.5 hour marathon since our pass expired the next day) leaving one of their classes when the instructor came up to me and told me how well behaved my kids were and how impressed she was by us.

WHOOHOO! I just wanted to write this to remember it always. Especially like tonight when my kids were wound up after 3 icecream cones (where was their mother? :) ... hey, it let me talk another hour with my mom and sisters.