Thursday, April 30, 2009

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!

1 comment:

Pip said...

awesome double stroller and awesome pigtails!