Ninnyisms

"My finger hurts! My mouth bit it!"

Happy Easter!

We had a very nice Easter. On Saturday, we took the girls to a great egg hunt where they came home with a good number of eggs filled with candy. I was worried that they wouldn't get much. We have been to some where they are lucky to come away with one. This one was great! They even had the Easter bunny. Michaela made sure to move away from the camera; she is getting too old for bunnies!





Sunday, we woke up and had lemon ricotta pancakes and the girls got baskets from Grandma.

Then they opened the ones from us.

Ninny got a new baby doll, she was very happy about it.

One of my favorite parts of Easter is seeing all my girls lined up at church in new dresses.

I bought little gloves for the younger two, and then left them at home! They put them on for pictures at home, though.



Then we had an egg hunt in our yard with our real eggs.

Me and Michaela.

The weather was so nice!

Then my mom and I cooked for two hours, and we had a yummy dinner. Gene and Marlene came down for dinner, and also brought the girls baskets.

Mmmmm, chocolate truffle cake.

A great Easter. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have a day to celebrate the Resurrection and what it means for us as families. We had a great talk in Sacrament meeting today about the time line of Jesus' last days. It was humbling to listen to his sacrifice and suffering and to know he did it for me. We also had a fantastic musical number in Relief Society that brought tears to my eyes as I thought of what He went through. I know we fill much of the holiday with bunnies and candy, but more importantly it gives us a chance to ponder the Atonement and renew our convictions to live worthy of his sacrifice. I love Easter.

Sweet Dreams, Smarty Pants

Corrine lately has been having nightmares. I remember my other children begin to have them at about the same age. After a few months, they seem to taper off.

Last night, she was crying for me, so I went in and found her sitting up in bed, saying there were bugs and mud on her bed. (No, she didn't have any meth before bedtime!)

I picked her up, comforted her and said it was just a dream. I was hesitant to try to explain to her about that, we had never talked about dreams before and that is a difficult concept for a two year old to grasp. She just nodded and we cuddled.

As I put her back to bed, she said something that let me know she had been processing what I said and putting two and two together.

She said "Mom, dreams disappear and go away," while making a "poof" and gone gesture with her little chubby hand.

I hadn't said that to her, those were her words. Amazing. I didn't even know she understood the concept of disappear.

Here I was witnessing her comprehension of a very abstract concept.

Then she said that a giant sometimes came to her dreams.

So sad. Broke my heart, but at the same time, I am sitting here thinking," I am having the most amazing conversation with my little smarty pants at 2 in the morning. "

She goes on to explain a little more to me about her dreams, and chats with me a bit. I kiss her head, and say,"Dreams can be good too. You can dream about a big ice cream, or playing at the park, or making cookies with Mommy. Go back to sleep and dream good dreams."

I am so amazed at her thought processes at such a young age. Maybe it comes from being the fourth child and having the influence of 3 older sisters, but this little one is smart.

Easter Fun and a Cool Tan Line

Easter is kind of sneaking up on me. I really hadn't thought much about it until this week. I think it is because we are not hosting a big family dinner! For FHE, Payden did an Easter lesson (I hadn't even thought of it!) and on a whim I decided to make paper mache eggs like we did last year. It was fun, and Corrine did really well with it. It was so cute watching her try to get the tissue paper off her gluey fingers!


Ava, on the other hand, has been anticipating Easter and is very excited for it. She made herself into a little bunny by putting on all white clothes and drawing a face on with marker.

And what do you get when you spend an hour on a beautiful Saturday afternoon running?

An IPOD armband tan line, thats what. Can you see it? Its pretty faint, but its there. Cool!

Some pics of our house

Sooo, this isn't the whole house, but its a start. The rest wasn't very tidy, so I will get those later.

Here is the kitchen. Lots of space, I love it. Of course, if we buy the house, I will redo it, but its ok right now. It does need all new appliances, and not just for asthetics. The microwave is touchy, the fridge is all beat up, and the oven is almost as bad. But, I love all the space. I was worried about the tiny island, but it actually has lots of counter space.

One great thing about this kitchen, it has a spot to catch clutter that is not really visable! There is this little "hidden" counter next to the fridge. Joy. That is where all my counter clutter goes.Ha, ha, now I am showing you a pic of my counter clutter. Awesome. Also, it has a nice deep farm style sink. I can fit a lot of dirty dishes in there without anyone seeing them!


Here is the garage door. Off to the right is the pantry, the left is a half bath.

The bath.

The pantry. Is. Huge. I love it. One one side, I have hooks hung for coats and backpacks. One downside of this house; there is no coat closet. At all. So our coats and shoes go in the pantry!

The other side is used for what it is supposed to be for!

Here is a shelf I had Jason make for me, and I finished. He did a great job; I love it!

Here is the living room, open to the kitchen. I made the curtains, and would like some honest feedback. They look to wimpy to me. I didn't want them to be too wide. There are too many windows and not enough wall space for wide, but they still look too wimpy. What do you think?

You can see in the bottom right of this photo that we have the computer desk in here. The only place for it. I spend too much time there now, as its right next to the kitchen. Oh,well!

Here is the litte room off the front door we call the piano room. Not very big, but it is nice to have a separate place for the piano. This room also has french glass doors.

When you walk in, there is no entry way, which bothered me at first. I just put my entry table in the piano room. Works. There is kind of a split level right here, with stairs going up, and stairs going down.


What is left is the downstairs, which has the two older girls rooms and the guest room and a bathroom. Upstairs is the little girls rooms, their bathroom, laundry, and our master. When I get pics of those, I will post!

Flowers for mom

All my girls have brought me flowers when they were little. Ava is no different, but her presentation is! Here is her latest creation; all the yellow flowers in the middle surrounded by the purple ones. She brings me flowers just about every time she goes outside. So sweet.

Our master bedroom

We got our master all done! Painted, decorated, and cleaned of clutter. I love it!

Here is a pic from the closet. Which is huge, but a mess, so no pic. I made the curtains. Jason found the fabric on clearance for $8, so you are looking at $8 dollar curtains, baby! We already had the rod. Gotta love it. I know this isn't the best pic, I should have shut the window. I'll take one at night so you can see them better. They are white.

Here is the view out my dirty window. Golf course with mountains in the background. Gorgeous. We have the pleasure of listening to all the wildlife that inhabits the wetlands; lots of birds, cicadas, frogs. It sounds so nice!

Here is what I did on my ceder chest; that is my great grandmothers little suitcase. I was going to put it in storage, where it has been for years, but it looked good sitting out. I used to use this to put my color crayons in when I was young.

I am so excited about how the wall above the bed turned out. The frames are all white and distressed. I will add to the wall as I find interesting frames. I would like some oval or circle ones, and some really chunky ones.

I also recovered all my decorative pillows. I had bought a vintage table cloth a while ago, and used that on three of the pillows. The yellow one is an old napkin, with pieces of the table cloth.

I absolutely love our room. I just need to make something to cover up the end of the bed where the comforter doesn't quite reach, and I'll be done. I do want to make a new bedspread, I have a plan in mind but I don't know when I will start it. It will be white, though, kind of like an Anthropology one I saw.