A Day in the Life...

...of a suitcase? A year or so ago, we got a little suitcase for Mimi, and Buddy has always been fascinated by it. Ever since I have been looking for one for him. Yesterday, while looking for various items at our local second-hand store, Savers, we found the one...apparently they knew each other in the pre-Earth life. Buddy adores the rolling wonder.
In the 24 hours since we found it in the store, the suitcase has only been out of his sight when I specifically forbade it's entrance into the restaurant this evening, and when he's slept. It stayed in the car. It's gone to Gramma Sharon's house, up and down the driveway and sidewalks around our house. It sits by his bed when he goes to bed (I don't think he thought to put it in his bed...strange, since it literally follwed him everywhere on the playground.)

They had a wonderful time at the park, going up the steps, through the tunnels, and down the slides. Buddy reportedly saved the suitcase from a bee...I was shown the wings, smashed on the slide. When I asked how he smashed it, Mimi said "His shoe." But Buddy disagreed, saying, "My bottom!" At least he still wears diapers!

Buddy has always made friends rather easily, but I never realized that extended to inanimate objects. It is so fun to see him with his new "friend". ;)

Fun Days, Sun Days

This has been quite a busy week for our family. The weather has been absolutely beautiful, so we've spent a lot of time outside... except for Tuesday when it snowed a couple inches!)
Sweetsa met her first patch of grass and couldn't after be contained on the blanket. She has been rolling all over the place for a while now. This week she began scooting forward, not quite army crawling, but definitely strait line movement vs. rolling to get everywhere (although she still does alot of that too.)
We of course had the requisite egg hunts on Saturday. Mimi and Buddy secured enough eggs to keep the family in candy for a few weeks at least. Javich dropped by our house wearing his pink bunny suit. I wanted to get a picture of the kids with our own Easter Bunny, but they ran away;( When asked on Sunday about being visited by the big pink bunny, Buddy said, "No it's a pig, just like Javich!" So both my kids insist it's a pig suit, NOT a bunny suit. Sorry, Javich!
Javich has posted about the adventures he had this year while wearing that suit on campus and to work! He had my sides hurting as he told me!
Also on Saturday we had a ward talent show. Mimi decided to get a group of girls together and dance to Bach's Sicilienne from Sonata in E Flat Major for Flute and Harpsichord. The girls in pastels danced beautifully and loved the attention from the crowd. The girls in black were quite a bit more timid, occaisionally racing across the stage, spending most of the dance hiding behind the curtains. They were all so cute, and got plenty of applause. I was going to do the famous broomstick trick as my talent, but was unable to, due to a shoulder injury, sigh. I am getting old! So I took two still-warm loaves of my homemade bread* and some home-canned jam...it all got eaten, so I assume that my "talent" was appreciated.

On Sunday we had Family Easter Dinner here at our house. Dani brought her Mom's German Potato Salad, Caroline made her fantastic orange rolls, and Mommy made her Molten Fudge Cake for John's b-day. It all went well with the ham we ate and the "ham" we listened to...inspired by Ree's blog, we listened to Oedipus Tex and Classical Rap as we ate. After dinner, Mimi took ChristieSue and Caroline outside to have Primary. Caroline complained that it was hard to hear with Buddy's lawnmower going.

* Here is the recipe, if you are interested...it's from my mother-in-law.
3 C. hot water
2 Tbsp. yeast
2 Tbsp. powdered suger
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. salt
1/4 C. oil
~8 C. flour
Mix all ingredients but 2 C. flour together, let rest 1 min. Add 2 cups flour and mix for 5 min. Cover and let rise until doubled in size. Cut and form into loaves. Let rise in pan(s). Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and has a hollow sound when knocked. Makes two loaves. This also works as excellent scone dough (not English -baked- scones, Scandanavian -fried- scones).

Family Statues

Last Sunday, (April 9th), we went up to the Adonis Bronzeworks in Alpine to celebrate Uncle Arval's 90th birthday. It was great to see all the relatives, meeting many of them for the first time. It was also fantstic to see the wealth of family history materials on display: multi-generational photos, books of rememberance, newspaper clippings, personal history stories, etc. Mommy is planning on getting copies of many of these things, to share with all at the Pearson/Streadbeck Reunion in Sandy in July.

While at the Bronzeworks, we took the opportunity to look at many of the sculptures on display. As we circled the display room, I heard Buddy exclaim, "HEY! It's me!" And then he ran up to this sculpture, and gave it a big hug.

And then Mimi had to give him a hug, too. They found a cute little friend!

They also enjoyed running around outside, climbing on the large lion sculpture, and looling at all the others. It was a very fun evening.

April Flours

Preschool

Growing up, I was rather proud of the fact that I had never gone to preschool...especially when a girl in my Kindergarten or 1st Grade class tried to tell me that I had been in her preschool class! (Nuh-UH! I didn't hafta go to preschool!) I don't think I missed out on anything, really...I got plenty of socialization and co-operative learning/playing at home and in Nursery and Primary. And that was what Mommy always told me was the reason I (and some of my siblings) didn't go to Preschool.

I am beginning to think that it also simplified her life at a time when things were probably pretty crazy...ie a big move from Easton to Trooper, baby #5 coming (hey Catherine, I'm glad you came!), being in the Primary, dealing with a relatively newly diagnosed diabetic child, not to mention keeping up with the three oldest kids' activities. Whoa! Typing all that now reminds me what a wonderful woman my Mom is! Way to go Mommy! I love you!

I am glad that Mimi and now Buddy have this chance to be in the Waterford Preschool Program. Especially when they have class (time on the computer) at the same time. They are learning so much, so quickly, it just amazes me. They learn reading, math and Science and love to talk about the things they learn. Computer has just about taken over first place in Buddy's heart. We have had to institute time limits so that the two of them don't spend all day in front of the computer screen.

Mimi also takes part in a neighborhood co-operative preschool. Five or six of the kids in her CTR 5 class (there are 11 total) get together every Tuesday morning for 2-3 hours. This week it was my turn to teach. We talked about the letter E, following directions with ordinal numbers, coloring (paper) Easter eggs, and then gluing them onto baskets (I found the template here). Some of the kids enjoyed putting their fingerprints on boiled eggs, instead of the normal dying them (of couse it's messier and more "hands-on" too;), while others were facinated by the VeggieTales movie "An Easter Carol." We ended with a quick egg hunt in the front yard.
The only complaint I got was that we didn't have "boy toys". That stumped me for a minute, and I said, "We have cars and trucks, trains, blocks, balls, and plenty of tools!" the somewhat disgusted response was,"Weapons. You don't have 'em." Ah well. I guess you can't please everyone. I guess they managed though, because they all seemed to have a good time, and were excited to show their moms their preschool spoils.

Since Mimi misses the kindergarten cut off date by a few weeks, she'll be at home for another year before she can go to kindergarten. Some people have asked me when I'm going to enroll her in a formal preschool. My instinct is to say, isn't she busy enough? But my usual response is "Not just yet, there's still plenty of time." And then I start thinking, does she really need preschool (a formal one)? But is that just because I turned out ok without it,(at least I think I turned out OK!), or because I'm feeling a little frazzled with everything else that's on our plate right now? So I guess what I need to do is figure out what is best for Mimi and go with that.

Late Bloomer

Our apricot trees finally decided to bloom! We have three late trees apparently. The other apricot trees in the area bloomed 7-10 days ago. Ours finally began popping on Monday...just before our spring storm hit on Tuesday! We've had wind, rain, hail sleet and snow since our trees bloomed. Ah well, such is spring in Utah! Mimi had to climb the fence in order for us to get her and the blossoms in the same frame (and still be able to recognize her, that is).
Can you make out the blossoms against the sky?

The flowers around our yard are beginning to look nice. Our crocus came and went, but haven't been as fantastic as they were the first two years we were here. Someone told me that bulb plants do really well the first 3-5 years after planting, and then don't do as well (meaning they don't look as nice). I wonder if that's because they need thinning or something. If you know, please share the reason and how I can revive them. I'm not up on my bulb plant care, I guess.

In other news, Sweetsa has gained weight in the past month...a whopping
15 oz! Grow, baby, grow! At her six month check up she had lost weight, so I was very happy to see the gain. I was told that her length percentile has dropped quite a bit, but that she is quite proportional...50th percentile for her height and weight...it's just her height and weight for her age that she's "lagging". I'm not so worried, since she's meeting all her developmental benchmarks: rolling over, manuevering around, reaching for things, using her pincer grasp, etc. She is a busy little one, getting into as much as Mom and Dad will let her. Here she has crashed at the end of a long day!

Come and get 'em!

I thought I'd make the announcement this way:
A dozen eggs up for grabs, to the first to come and claim them!
May the fastest contender win!)

The Zebu

I just discovered that there really IS an animal called a zebu (not Cebu as in Veggie Tales). I don't think that they have a Sad Zebu, a Sick Zebu and a Mute Zebu in a canoe, but I about dropped my teeth when I saw this picture ( by David Clark, from the book Peculiar Zoo), because it looks almost exactly like the Veggie Tales drawing! Here is what they really are and look like.

Fun Kids

Observed last night:
Mimi and her cousin E-beth, normally the best of friends, playing what appeared to be tag at grandma's house. As each neared the other in the game she made a grabbing motion, exclaiming "I got it!" All seemed fine and dandy until, after one such exchange, Mimi let out a peircing, somewhat garbled shriek. When I asked her what was wrong, she replied, "She stole my boyfriend, Jake!"

I guess they wern't playing tag!

Also reported to me last night:
Buddy was asked if he wanted to watch a movie with Joe. He said yes. Unbeknownst to him, Joe is a pink stuffed dog about Buddy's size. When Brittany brought Joe out to be with Buddy, he took the dog's jowls in his hands and earnestly said, "Hi Joe! I'm Buddy. It's nice to meet you!" Then they sat and enjoyed Chicken Run.


This isn't Sweetsa-pizza last night, but it is her as she discovered spaghetti this week. She loves it...almost as much as she loves a nice cold drink of water, preferably from your glass!