Thursday, April 30, 2009

Our Awesome April

Easter was great fun. We hunted for eggs and baskets and Aunt Helen and Uncle Eric's house in Del Mar.  The Bernd kids did a great job leaving the "obvious" eggs out for Brooklyn to find.  They also brought back some groovy socks for the kids from their recent skiing trip to Colorado.  The socks the got for Brookie are pink with a brown bear who is "bear hugging" the sock/foot.  Ian got some orange and brown socks with racoons on them.  They say "little rascal" on the bottom in raised print like the "tread" of the sock - as if he needs it.  Funny and cute.
Ian got his first taste of rice cereal.  It was brought to him by the Easter bunny, of course!  How do like the nose shot of the mom?  So I thought he was into it, the cereal, but Stephen wasn't convinced.  I don't know why... What does that face translate to you?  Okay, so he wasn't THAT into it the first time, but I think it's because he had eaten not too long before.  I just didn't want him to feel left out with all the snacking and treats and what-not.
Here's what a sugar crash looks like!  We have another shot like this of her, but she's lying on the livingroom floor, probably watching the He is Risen animated church video.  I didn't want to reveal my messy floor to the world though, so we'll leave that photo to the imagination.  I'm sure she was cuddled up to some dirty clothes for her pillow.  Anyway, this is the same child who would NOT, I repeat NOT fall asleep at our friend's house at 3AM when Stephen and I went to the hospital to have Ian.  While she stayed at our friend's house, she just watched movie after movie, waking up my friend when each one had finished so that she could get a new one going.     
This was yet another zoo visit.  This time we showed up at the right spot to see a camel's feeding time.  Brooklyn tried to hand-feed it, but the worker didn't want her fingers to get munched off in the meantime.  So really, we just got front row seats, and pretended that we really did some feeding.  
These are the moments that we really live for...Here is Brooklyn reading Pat the Bunny to Ian upon my request.  She has the book memorized and when she reads it, she "allows"/forces him to do each activity.  In case you haven't noticed yet, yes, she is very dedicated to her dress-ups.  This daily mourning ritual has been brought to you by the producers of our most prized hand-me-downs (older girl cousins), by old halloween costumes, and by lots of aunts and uncles who get married and have graciously included us in their extensive wedding parties. (Oh, and the beads are from last year's Mardi Gras and the "slippers," like Cinderella's, are from aunt Pip last Christmas - those chunky hearts are hanging on for dear life!) 

April at a Glance

I HAD to get this post in so that I can balance out my life by at least posting one new entry to our blog in April.  This month has just wizzed by!  I can't even believe that May is only an hour away!  Does life ever slow down?  
My excuse for non-blogging this month is that I've been on a sewing frenzy.  Anytime the kids were asleep, if I wasn't cleaning or cooking, I was pretty much sewing.  (In a perfect world, right?  I'm sure there were a few other not-so-productive activities squeezed into there too! :) April for us included two trips to the zoo, and a visit to the Wild Animal Park.  Thankfully we have not yet tiree of the good ol' San Diego Zoo!  We also made a trip up to L.A. for a baptism and birthday party.  We listened to General Conference - Aaaaahhh.  (That was the most relaxing thing we did all month!)  We also made a whirlwind trip up to Utah and back to witness Rebecca and Taber's wedding and Jessica, Eric, Cindy, and Rebecca's graduation. Phew
Our first zoo trip was a part of Stephen's work "retreat."  We decided to share the experience with his "SHAS" buddies. (Scripps Health Administrative Something) It's basically the project management department in which Stephen has been working.  Did I mention April also brought us/Stephen an official JOBY-JOB?  Stephen got a job offer working for the Scripps Memorial Hospital at La Jolla as the Patient Logistics Manager.  We are excited that he is finally officially permanent.  We also realize that even though his formal education days are over, the real deal is only beginning. 
Okay, queen of tangents is now back to the pictures and April recap.!  The above two pic's. are of Brooklyn before and after spotting the polar bear.  Pretty telling, huh?  Do you love how Stephen's sporting the Blackberry in one hand and the tutu'd toddler on the opposite shoulder.  Nice one.
Next is the conference tent.  Stephen and I love listening to our prophet and the brethren share with us the most inspired and timely messages.  Thanks to some great suggestions from our friends via sacrament talks, we found ways to try involving the kids.  We took out the centerfold of the previous conference Ensign that shows all of our previously current general authorities.  We wanted Brooklyn to try and recognize the First Presidency and know their names.  Most importantly, she can identify the prophet 99.9% of the time.  When a new speaker begins his/her message, Brooklyn could earn a small treat by matching their face with one of the pictures from the chart.  Even though she needed a lot of help with that, it was motivational.  To a 3-year-old, many of the men look quite similar, like, well, GRANDPAS!  I had to resort to distinguishing features such as glasses or no glasses, hair or less hair, and white or dark hair.  I also made a collage of pictures from Friend magazines.  When a topic was mentioned, if she could find a representative picture, she could earn yet another treat.  (What a spoiled girl!)
Between sessions of conference, Brooklyn had her first mini-lesson in soccer from her dad.  She probably showed interest for about 3 minutes before picking up those two sticks in the picture above and chasing the birds with them.  Life is never dull around here... 

To be continued!