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.