Just call me Birdie . . .

Cuz I'm a-nesting! I don't know why I've been in such a posting slump, but I don't know how interesting my life is to those who actually my blog. ESPECIALLY when I have things to write like, "today I cleaned out my tupperware cupboard" or "today I cleaned the pantry and the highlight was consolidating all my powdered sugar into one container," etc. I've been focused on my kitchen cupboards, but have been envisioning grand things for our bedrooms, too. We'll see how it goes in the next couple weeks. I am finding it's a little awkward to try and fit my big 'ol self into the back of my cupboard to wipe out crumbs, but even worse is getting up after I've been down and dirty. It's almost comical watching me get up, stumble around to get my footing and then walk all stiff for a few minutes until I can regain my balance. Nothing like being 8 mo. pregnant to feel out of shape!

And why all the motivation? I had my Dr.'s appt. on Monday and I'm dilated. That's right, let's hear it for my va-j-j (as Oprah calls it) and it's prompt 1 cm. dilation. I whispered a "YES!" when the Dr. told me I had already started to dilate, but then she had to give me the pre-term labor talk since I technically still have 6 more weeks until I'm due. She said she's concerned that the baby is sitting so LOW already and told me to be a good girl and not do anything for at least a couple weeks, which is fine. I'll save the acrobatics for at least 3 more weeks, right?! Anyhow, I told her I wasn't too worried; that I always dilate early; but I never have full blown labor; and that I was just happy to be at the point where things are happening. I go back in 2 weeks and we're supposed to go to Coral Pink to camp with the kids. I figure it'd be a little foolhardy to go if I am dilated to a 3, but if I'm only a 2 I think it'll be par for my pregnancy course and I'll be okay. We'll see. I am beginning to believe I'll be missing youth conference the first weekend in May (not that THAT's wishful thinking), so I'm trying to make sure everything's in order and ready to be turned over to the other more-than-wonderfully-capable leaders. It is a bummer to miss something that I've been working hard on and look forward to each year, but when it's either that or waddling around for the weekend afraid my water will break and traumatize a bunch of teenage-d youth, I may be better off sitting this one out. Again, we'll see.

Other than the nesting baby-thing, I've been practicing about 4 nights a week for The Savior of the World production next week. I just want to say if you're in Vegas and want to drive to the Henderson Pavilion next Wed, Thurs, Fri, or Sat you TOTALLY should to see this musical play that the Anthem stake is putting on. All the tickets are gone, but if the seats aren't filled in by 7:10pm, they'll let the public take the seats or you can bring a blanket and sit on the grass. The show's at 7:30pm. I'm just in the choir, which sits down in the orchestra pit, but the production itself is pretty amazing and I am VERY impressed with the caliber of talent they have for the actors and acresses. And they are really nice people, too, which makes the scenes all the more sweet. I have to give credit to the musical director, the director, and the costume gal (well, I guess everyone is working really hard), but most of them have full time jobs and have been doing rehearsals FOREVER right after work for 4-5 hours each night. And total shout out to the Anthem stake people who have had their life taken over by this production (wink! wink! Leslie).

That's about all I got on my mind now since it's time to get the boys ready for soccer and the girls ready for gymnastics. Tyler and I are like passing ships tonight, again. Such is the life of parents of busy kids, right?!

OH, but before I go, a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY (yesterday) to STACY and CHRIS. You gals rock the world; I love you both; and hope you had a great day. No Foolin'!

Happy Birthday Boogie Boy!

Today's Nate's birthday. I love him. I'm glad he's getting old so I can love him even more!

Love you little brother!

PS. It was Dave's birthday, too, a couple weeks ago. I really love him a lot, too. He just never reads our blog (I don't think) and was all la-tee-da in Mexico for his birthday, so he didn't get a picture shout out on the 18th. I'm glad he's getting old, too (not that it means he's grown up or anything . . . just old!) Love you, Doobie :)

I can move on now!

Alright. I have finished my book. It was good. It was really good. I recommend it. I know I already said that. But I do.

I kinda feel like this week has slipped by me. Tomorrow's Friday and there's only one more week of track break (a little hellelujah would be appropriate about here!). I found out yesterday that my girls' school is going from year round to 9 month, so I am trying to envision surviving three months vs. three weeks with all my kiddo-s home. At least it's not this summer with a new baby, etc. By next year I'll have this family of five thing down, right!

And speaking of the baby. Is anyone else captivated by the dwindling number on the 'ol sidebar? I'm starting to feel all nest-y (well, not too nest-y since I spent a week primarily reading), but am getting urges to pull out all the tupperware and wipe down my cupboards, wash my walls, and reorganize the pantry. I'm looking at frames hanging on my walls that haven't had pictures in them forever and feel the need to have them filled. I need to have my carpets washed, order a dresser for the baby, and get our room ready for the bring-home. Since I was so sure we were done, I got rid of all my baby stuff as Brock outgrew it. (I do still have the crib, high chair, some burpies and blankets and our basinet and my sister's great friend, Jeannette, has loaned me a bunch of baby play gyms and a swing, and Mindie passed on her activity ring thing.) But every time I go to Target or Wal-Mart I have a hard time buying the necessities all over again: ya know, bottles, binkies, bath wash, etc. I have bought some newborn diapers and some pad-dage for el mama (since birth means leaking from every oriface - gross, but true!) And since I have no baby clothes until this ones about 18 months, I have started a collection of onesies and outfits. I told myself the restocking would be fun IF it every came to that (when I was giving away all the stuff), but I am definitely dragging my feet on it now that it's within sight. I guess I figure the stores aren't closing the day he's born, so we can manage one day at a time. The last time I took my kids to the store I thought I am definitely going to splurge on a Baby Bjorn and possibly a stroller since I am totally out-handed. With a stroller I can leash Brock to it and still have two hands to keep the older three in line.

So, obviously I have enough to do with just baby prep, but I am totally keeping myself busy with activities, too. Of course we have our normal agendas, but youth conference is the first weekend in May and I'm performing with the choir in The Savior of the World production the second week of April, so that means meetings, meetings, meetings these-a-days. We got the hallowed invite to Coral Pink, so we'll be taking the kids there the third week on April, which I'm excited for even though the thought of gritty, sandy kids at 8 1/2 months pregnant does not sound so "fun." I figure we'll wash them at the end of the day and let them wallow in their dirtiness during the day.

Anyway, busy as normal and hanging "out" there with my ever-growing belly. The doctor will be checking my cervix (or so she said last visit) on Monday at my appointment, and as sick as it sounds, I'm pretty stoked about that. I'll try to check in more often now that I don't have any immediate book reports due :) Hasta!

Easter Phase II

Saturday dawned a little chilly and breezy; perfect for the ward Breakfast with the Easter Bunny. We took the Petersens (don't we show our visitors a great Vegas time!) and headed to the park for the games, an egg hunt, and breakfast.

Mackenzie was all in the spirit:

So were John, Tyler, and Carter

And can you tell how excited Tyler and Brock were?

Of course, Brevin's on board if he's getting eggs of candy.

And then there's Caylee. Before we ever left the house I asked her, "Are you SURE you don't want a jacket, it's pretty chilly this morning." She assured me she'd be fine and off we went. Shortly after arriving was the egg hunt and this is what her reaction was to that:

Apparantly NOT the most successful hunt-er, but not to worry, breakfast and games to follow, right? Oh no! This is the beginning of the end for her. She seriously whined and cried and moped for an entire hour while we were at the park! It was so infuriating. She was cold; she didn't like her candy; the blanket Sister Galvin brought her from her car wasn't Caylee's own blanket; the jacket Kenzie loaned her was too big; she wanted more bacon; her friends were all playing; the Easter Bunny is a fake, dressed up one; and on and on and on! FINALLY we went to the play thing and she spent the last 15 minutes running around with her girlfriends. I swear she's imbalanced sometimes!

Here's Kenzie and Brock with the fake, dressed up Easter Bunny:

There were a lot of fun games (mostly for the kids), but the potato sack races were the best. Mackenzie full-out DOVE for the finished line and won by a nose. She was sore the next day, but I was pretty proud of how hard-core she was; she went all out. So, Tyler, not to be out-done, worked his fanny off in the 19-34 year old heat (which ended up being more like 16-34) and took a note from his daughter's playbook and went for it at the end. He was pretty proud of his grass-stain for the whole day.

The rest of Saturday was pretty full with the ham pick-up (thank you Honeybaked store), our nephews nd niece's b-day party (thank you Amy for yummy food), and a basketball game (thank you for UNLV for LOSING - not!). And whoever wrote the song "Saturday is a Special Day" knew that we should be grateful, no matter how hectic Saturday is because Sunday is gonna be worse, probably, and you should get as much of your stuff done ahead of time as possible! That'll be in the next Easter installment.

Easter Phase I

Let's hear it for Easter! Woo. (Did you feel my enthusiasm?) I told Tyler on Sunday that I was pretty sure Easter was one of my least favorite holidays, which, yes, seems kinda sacriligeous. I do enjoy the time to think about Christ's ressurection and all, it's more the bunny business that I get fed up with. And holidays that last forever (like a week of preperation and party-ing) have a way of turning me off. Well, except Christmas because that's supposed to take forever to get things all together, but Easter? C'MON! We celebrated a joint St. Patrick's/Easter/March birthday party with the Barlows a week before Easter (which is very efficient and multi-tasky of us.) It was fun to have everyone over to our house, but I wasn't really feeling too much better from my attack of the CRUD, so I didn't bust out the camera for that party. Later in the week our great friends, the Petersen family, decided to escape the snow and visit us for a few days of Spring Break. They got here Thursday and we dyed Easter eggs:

Here's Brevin and Kate stuck on the same color. If we couldn't swap their mugs fast enough the next egg went right into the same color:

Carter Petersen

And here's Amy with their youngest, Tyler. When they had Tyler they told us we'd be getting a package in the mail, but were all cryptic about the baby. When we got the package we found out they had named their newest after Tyler. (Okay, not so much AFTER him; they liked the name, but at least Tyler hadn't ruined the connotation while John and Tyler served their missions together. The conversation could have been: Amy saying, "I like the name Tyler," and then John saying, "No way! I served with this dork of a guy named Tyler." Instead John was able to say, "Yeah, the Tyler I know's pretty okay.") We love 'em all.

We all really enjoyed the nice weather and great conversations during the Petersen's visit. We pretty much hung out Thursday night (Tyler got Amy up to speed on the Big Foot addiction he's developped). Friday we went to the park and had a water fight and then the adults went to Grand Luxe Cafe. It was a great time for all of us; crazy at times with 7 kids under the age of 8, but they all played really well and there was no drama. Of course, I made a couple trips to Target that week to fix some of the Easter Bunny's previous shopping mistakes and to finish up some necessary purchases for the rest of the weekend's events (to follow in the next phase installments on the blog!) Boing! Boing! Bounce, Bounce.

Did anybody else see . . .

Frontline: Bush's War on PBS?
Wow.
We're a mess.

To Do Tuesday (this week and last)

Alright, alright! I know I haven't blogged much. We had some fabulous company last week and then all the Easter festivities, but in my spare time I have been busy with some serious reading. I have always loved to read; will stay up late to get a chapter further or pull my current book out to read a few more lines at a stoplight, etc. I just love a good story. There are few books I haven't finished because once I start I HAVE to know how it ends, even the ones I don't particularly care for. Some people ask how I have time to read, and I think my little bits of book at a time must add up because then I finish a honking novel in a few weeks. Well, this week I have hardly even checked blogs or accomplished much else since I started this baby last week.

The book club I attend sporadically with my teacher friends picked this book for the meeting next month. Now, I can't go to the meeting, but have heard the book was pretty intriguing. So, I started the 971 page historical fiction-ish book last week and have really been into it. Tyler keeps asking "When's your book report due?" I imagine my reading time will be really cut short when the baby arrives, so I am soaking it all in now. And let me say 723 pages have not disappointed yet. I highly recommend this book!

Right before I started "Pillars" I finished this puppy:

It was really interesting, apparantly popular in the 60's, and I wouldn't call myself a HUGE Leon Uris fan, but the information was quite enthralling. I would recommend this book for the educational (although completely slanted) point of view about the conflict in Israel. I would say I cried at the end of this novel, and felt pretty drained, but am glad for having read the book.

So, that's pretty much what's been going on (other than the normal house cleaning, errand running, child rearing). I do have more to post from the weekend, and it'll totally fall way after the fact, but the pics are too cute to not post. Maybe I'll finish the last couple hundred pages and can get back to the norm again.