Kare Bear

Karen is the sister just after me. She is 3 years younger. I mostly remember us fighting a lot when we were kids. A couple of particular moments I recall are:

1. Her sitting on the counter kicking me and I grabbed both her feet and pulled on them so that she landed on her back on the floor
2. She and I laying on the floor kicking and clawing at each other, she always managed to scratch me or pinch me so hard with her sharp little nails
3. One time playing Scattegories and I threw this huge dice that has all the letters on it at her, she was bent down and I really just wanted to scare her, but at that moment she looked up and it hit her square in the mouth giving her a nice fat lip.

I loved to tease her. I would call her Honey Bulloney because she hated it and I would call her Bucky O’Hare, referring to her teeth. She has this cute little nose and it’s almost just like 2 nostrils stuck on her face so we sometimes called her E.T. I guess being a big sister just made me mean cause everyone picked on me and now it was my turn I guess. I do have sweet memories of her too. My favorite from our childhood is when I was in 3^rd or 4^th grade. Our class was learning songs for a Christmas program and there was one song in particular that we liked, it is called Emanuel. She would ask me to sing it to her over and over again when we were in bed before we fell asleep.

Karen is my little sister and I am always concerned about her. She is a grown woman now and it is strange to me that she could be married and having her own kids so soon. She is very beautiful, skinny, and stylish. She went to beauty school and she can pull off so many different hair styles and colors. She came here and lived with us for a few months at the end of 2004 and a little of ’05. It was so fun that Tucker got to know her so well. He referred to the bed in our guest room as “Karen’s bed” long after she moved. Karen is very sensitive, emotional, and a bit dramatic (like most of the women in our family). She has tons of friends and boys throwing themselves at her. She is known in our house for making the best potato salad and I think that is pretty much the only thing she makes. She is funny and affectionate and great! Like Adam, she has always just absolutely loved and adored babies. Karen I love you and I can’t wait for you to love on my babies all the time.

I am taking a break from my sibling posts for a few days or so because my internet connection sucks so bad lately that I cannot finish in time. After posting my Utah oh Utah post I thought of some things that I won't miss that much about Utah.
-the little neighbor boy who thinks he is welcome at any time even though there is nobody here even close to his age ( I guess Tucker still gets a kick out of him, but I don't)
-box elder bugs (or hump bugs as I call them)
-freezing my butt off all winter and not being able to have fun in the snow with a baby
-the "everyone in provo must be mormon like me" mentality-I know I am mormon but it still bugs me for some reason
-my swamp cooler making all our food soft
I look forward to
-family time
-babysitters I really trust my kids with
-date nights because I have those babysitters
-restaurants like Ned's Krazy Sub, Pei Wei, Cheesecake factory, Crackers, and The Landmark
-Tucker having tons of cousins to play with
-knowing people I trust to cut my hair
-Grandmas to spoil my kids
-Trent being home at a decent hour (morning and night)
A few other things I'll miss
my big shade tree
decent traffic
green grass and pretty plants

Utah Oh Utah

Today is plenty warm and sunny and Trent mentioned I should wash my car. So after we ate lunch with him, I came home, put Charlotte down for a nap, put Tucker in the kiddie pool and washed the car. It was fun! I was reminded of a summer when I was 12 and a friend and I walked around with a bucket and towels and soap and sponges and went door to door selling car washes for 2 bucks, what a deal! We just used the hoses at the houses we went to. I don't remember how much we made, but we had a lot of fun washing cars in our swim suits and one guy gave us ten bucks cause he had just taken a road trip and we had to scrape a million bugs off his grill.
Anyway I hopped in the kiddie pool with Tucker and was just thinking about a bunch of
Things I am going to miss about Utah.
-Gina (and Ian and Liam)
-Michelle (and her boys)
-Tori
-My house
-Thinking 90' is super hot
-The mountain views
-my Sunday School class
-Cafe Rio
-snow
-rain
-cherry trees

I am sure many more will come to mind when I am actually gone. But that's what I thought of today.

Emily

Emily is the sibling right before me. She is 3 years older than me. We spent many years of our childhood sharing a bedroom. I remember back massages before bed time and laughing and being silly. Emily introduced me to and got me liking country music and Billy Joel. Emily always seemed really cool to me. She had lots of friends that always seemed to be doing fun, cool things. I wanted to be like her in a lot of ways. I remember her telling me about the fun dance activities she would do and I particularly thought it was funny that a bunch of high school kids would dress up as muppets and sesame street characters for a costume themed dance. She was Oscar the Grouch, not very fitting for someone who seemed to me to always be upbeat. When she and her friends would get together everyone else in the house would go crazy because they would talk so loud and their voices seemed to get really high pitched. Typical bubbly teenage girls, I guess. Right before my freshman year and Emily's senior year we moved to Wyoming. Our house was still being built and the rest of the family stayed in Utah until it was finished, but we decided it would be better not to have to switch schools during the year. So Em and I moved into a one bedroom apartment with my dad who was living there to work and coming home on the weekends. We started at Star Valley High School and Emily was kind enough to let her dorky freshman sister eat lunch with her and her friends in the Senior hall until I found my own friends to eat with. That was pretty cool. I am feeling retarded that I can't think of way more specific childhood memories with Emily. Perhaps I am losing my mind or I just have a terrible memory- I do lose things on a regular basis.

Anyway I do know plenty of ways to describe her. Physically she has the cutest,most petite body with the roundest little bubble butt, she is healthy and very pretty-she even competed in the Mrs. Hawaii pageant (it's for married women). She is very intelligent and graduated BYU Hawaii. She is motivated, talented(a great writer), not afraid to tell you what she thinks, outgoing, a leader, organizer, and planner, a list maker, a traveler (she and her husband backpacked in Nepal for weeks), she loves reading and learning, she shares advice and recipes and her feelings, she is thoughtful and calls more than anyone else in my fam. She is adventurous and loves playing cards and board games. Emily, there is no one like you and I am lucky to have you as a big sister.

Adam

Adam is my next oldest sibling. He is 5 years older than me. Much like Sarah, I did not know him very well growing up. I remember an incident when my dad was pretty mad at him and went in his room to destroy his collection of shot glasses. I remember he listened to Crash Test Dummies. I remember that when I was in Junior High he told me that I was the biggest loser in my school which made me cry because I was in fact a pretty big loser. He was a little shocked that I reacted that way, he was only kidding. I remember him telling me about a that I had sleep-walked into his room crying and he had had to carry me back upstairs to my room. I remember he and Sarah teased me a lot because when I was in elementary school I had talked in my sleep about s boy I liked, they would chant "Victor, Victor, my name is Victor" which is apparently what I said in my sleep. That would always make me really embarrassed and mad. When I was 12 I decided that I wanted to collect troll dolls, this is the one Adam got me ->
The day after my first kiss with Trent, Adam and I went to a stake singles dance together, I remember thinking how it was weird that we were going out doing something together like friends. I really liked it. The night before my wedding we had a family dinner and everone in Trents family told a story about him and my family told stories about me. Adam got up and said that I was the good child. In my mom's eyes I could do no wrong, even if there was evidence to the contrary. It was the first time I had heard that. It seemed funny to me, I was far from the perfect child. One of my favorite times hanging out was when I came to visit Mesa, I was pregnant with Tucker. I flew in and he picked me up from the airport. He took me to lunch at a chinese place, The Bamboo Hut on Mill Ave. It was great, that was the first time I tried edamame(which I love now). We looked at some stores and then climbed the ASU mountain. I loved it!
I would describe Adam as good looking(all my friends say so), physically fit and athletic, health concious ( I remember him keeping weird health food stuff in our fridge like flax seed oil and other stuff, he also went through a vegetarian phase and has always worked out), holistic, aware of his environment, intelligent, a great cook, independant, silly and playful, a face maker, a joker, a hard worker, and someone who appreciates nature, beauty, art, and literature (a metrosexual?). Adam has always loved babies and is a wonderful, adoring father. He married this great girl who had two boys and fell into the father role so easily and they now have a baby girl together 2 weeks older than Charlotte. Her name is Moqui and she is darling.

Food Glorious Food

Charlotte had her first taste of food today. She will be 5 months old this week and she breastfeeds so often we thought it was time. She got quite a bit down and seemed to like it. Big girl!

Sarah

I think I should do a post about each of my siblings. This will take up 8 posts and I think will be pretty fun. Sarah is the eldest. She is 6 years older than me. I didn't really know her that well when we were younger. I remember that she and Adam(my next sibling) were always buds and would sometimes gang up on us a little. I guess that's what big brothers and sisters are for. They always called my cousin Crabby Abbie and would chant "fly like a butterfly" to make us mad. I don't really even remember why that made us mad. She has very small ears and I remember her telling me that mine were big. I do have big lobes, they are going to make me an ugly old person. Anyway, I remember thinking she was really cool and wanting to listen to her music when we lived in California. I didn't really get to know Sarah until I was much older. Now we are great friends.
I think of Sarah as: a great mother, beautiful, strong willed, funny, creative-a fabulous scrapbooker and card maker, thoughtful, in great physical shape, stylish, sarcastic, picture shy, and so much more. She is someone I love to talk to, watch a movie with, eat food with, drink coke with, laugh at our kids with, and just be around. She makes me feel like I am special and funny.She is very supportive and encouraging. I remember her writing me a note wishing me luck before a track meet. She always tried to make it to my meets, she even took a small plane to Tucson to watch me at the state meet my Junior year. Not a lot of my family came to my meets, my dad would always try to make it, but I really thought it was cool that Sarah did too. She was one of the only ones at my graduation too. I am so pleased we will get to hang out more very soon and our kids will get to be friends. Sarah I love you and am glad to have you for a big sister.

Another new trick

Charlotte has rolled from her belly to her back a few times before, but yesterday she rolled from her back to her belly-Twice!

Charlotte's birth

So now I was considering an epidural. I have nothing against them, it brought me complete relief with Tucker. It's just that I have this thought that women for thousands of years have delivered their babies medicine free. My mom didn't always have the option of an epidural and neither do women all over the world today. So I figure I should be able to deliver at least one child without the assistance of a huge needle being inserted into my spine, leaving my legs feeling like a foot that's fallen asleep. But while my intentions were good this would not be the baby to arrive all natural. I got to a 6 and asked the nurse if I waited a little longer for an epidural if I woulld be able to get it. She told me they did not have an in house anesthesiologist, but that he was on his way to come in for a c-section that would be happening very soon and if I didn't get an epidural before he went in to the c-section, I would probably miss my chance. Well the pain and nausea were getting to me and I told her to go ahead and send him in when he got here. In the mean time I had to get my IV for the medicine to keep my baby safe from the Strep B virus I tested positive for weeks earlier. A nurse brought in a guy and told me he was training to be a paramedic and he would be putting in my IV. Flashback to Tucker's birth where a training nurse put in my IV and it was awful and hurt the whole time it was in. It was much the same, I hate needles and they make me nauseaus. It of course took like 3 times to get it in and made my nausea terrible and I was in tears and hating it. I called my big brother and told him to spread the word that I was at a six and things were going well. I also called Gina at this point and Michelle to ask her to come get Tucker. My doctor Dr. Wiley came in and tod me she would be doing the c-section down the hall. She jokingly told me that the plan was for her to go in a do the c-section and if I could be complete when she was finished that would be great. She left then and the anesthesiologist came in to prep me for my epidural. Michelle came in right at this point and took Tucker home with her. When I got my epidural with Tucker I had wanted Trent to sit in front of me and hold my hands while my mom watched the epidural, later he told me he wished he had gotten to see the epidural- he likes stuff like that. So this time around I had the nurse Ana (who I absolutely loved) come hold my hands and balance me so Trent could watch the action. My nausea was really bad at this point and I requested a pink puke catcher. And while the epidural itself was not as painful as the stupid IV it didn't help that I puked and peed my pantsless self while he gave it to me. And then when he was done I felt it necessary to announce to the nurse that I "just wet my pants a little bit". It didn't seem to phase her. She just thanked me for asking for a puke tray instead of puking on her with no warning- which has apparently happened before. Almost immediately I had total relief and laid down to relax. Then about 15 minutes later I was feeling uncomfortable. It wasn't contractions I was feeling and I was confused why I was feeling like this so soon after the epidural. Then I realized what I was feeling, I was complete. I told Trent - I think I'm a ten, go get the nurse. She came in and checked and sure enough I was complete. She went out to get the doctor, after a minute I was getting worried. Trent go get them I need to push. The nurse came back in and asked me to do a little push before we get the doctor, Just a little one she said. I gave a little push and she said, okay stop, I'll be right back. In a couple minutes she was back with Dr. Wiley. Trent had set up the video camera on a tripod behind me and we were ready to go. I did what you said, I told the doctor, she laughed and said I was the best patient. Two pushes and less than 5 minutes later I saw my baby doing a flip out of my body into the doctor's arms. I noticed the paramedic trainee had come in and stood at the back of the room to watch me give birth. The actual birth was awesome, it was so fast and she was so perfect and I didn't tear at all. (Having no stitches made my recovery so much better!)I couldn't believe how good I felt right after. It was shortly after 10 o'clock and I had my baby after less than 4 hours after being checked into the hospital. Our final name choices were Charlotte or Paisley. Trent asked if I thought she was a Charlotte and I told him he could choose because I liked both names. So she was Charlotte Joy Powell, 7lbs 8oz and 21 inches long. The one bad thing about such a quick experience was that I didn't get the four hours of antibiotic in my IV to protect Charlotte from the possible complications from Group B Strep. Luckily everything was fine!

Laboring with Charlotte

Monday Tucker had an accident free day. So Monday night we took him to Chuck E. Cheese as promised. He has only been there once before, the day that Charlotte was born. I haven't written down her birth story yet and I think it's time I did.
We were off birth control and my period was a couple days late, but I thought I would wait a couple more days before taking a pregnancy test. It was April 20 and my brother's wife Michelle called and said she thought she might need to take a pregnancy test. When I told her we were in the same boat, she decided to drive down from Salt Lake and we would do this together. We headed to KMart and bought a 3 pack and split up into our seperate bathrooms to do the tests. 3 minutes later we both had positive results!
Charlotte was due the day after Christmas. I remember sitting down with Trent and calculating her due date when we found out we were pregnant. The first thing Trent said was, "Our kid's gonna hate us." We hadn't really thought about how birthdays close to Christmas probably aren't the funnest. Anyway, since Tucker had come 3 days late with my mom feeding me castor oil mixed in orange juice (that's one way to assure there will be no b.m. during delivery) and my mom had all her babies late I figured this new baby would be a few days late too. Then there was the doctor and Trent saying- Let's have this baby before the end of the year, for tax purposes you know. So Michelle had her baby two weeks early and my friend Mel McKinnon that was due a couple days after me had her baby early as well, so by Christmas I was wanting to meet my baby. Christmas day came and went and early the next morning (around 4 am I think) I started having contractions. They weren't too strong, but were pretty regular and I told Trent I thought we were gonna have the baby that day. When he headed off to work they were still going and he told me to call when I was ready to go. Tucker and I had a pretty normal day, hanging out with the Blackhursts for a little while. While I was there my contractions were coming pretty close together, so I told my friend Michelle she may have to watch Tucker that night if I had the baby. She was really great and said they would be glad too. She had volunteered to previously because my mom's plans were to come up on January 2. I decided Tucker and I should go on a little date since we wouldn't be spending much time alone anymore. It was a strange thought because for the last two and a half years we had pretty much spent all our time together with just the two of us. We went to Fazoli's to have junch together. While we were waiting for our food I called my mom to let her know my contractions were about 6 minutes apart and I would be going to the hospital in the next couple of hours. She didn't sound too convinced that it was the real thing and told me they were just heading out the door to go to Rocky Point, Mexico for a few days. I told her to call me later that night to find out any news. After lunch we went home and took naps, well at least I tried to rest while Tucker napped. Around 4 I told Trent to get ready to come home cause I thought we should go to the hospital soon and I put my bag in the car and waited. When Trent got home my contractions had slowed down a little and I wasn't sure if we should go yet because I didn't want to get sent home. Matt and Michelle Blackhurst called to see if we needed them to come get Tucker yet and I just told them I would let them know. We decided to go and look around at Sam's club and eat some dinner. The walking got my contractions coming faster and they were hurting more now. The boys ate hot dogs and I had a cherry Icee and a couple bites of Tuckers dog. We drove from there to the hospital and got there about 5:30 or so. They checked me and said I was at a 4 and they would keep me for an hour and then check me again. I told Trent he should probably take Tucker somewhere and keep him occupied for an hour. This is when Tucker discovered the wonder that is Chuck E. Cheese. After an hour I had barely progressed at all and the nurse asked when my due date was. "Today" She said she hates to send mothers home on their due date so she wanted me to walk the halls for thirty minutes and see if that would move things along. I called Trent and updated him and began my walking. It sucked walking the halls wearing one robe on the front and one backwards to cover my butt, but it worked. I told Trent to come back to the hospital. The nurse said I was a 5+ and they could check me in now. They moved me to my room and hooked me up to moniters. I sort of wanted to give birth without an epidural this time. I had been reading a hypnobirthing book, but hadn't taken the classes that I wanted to besides a couple hour breathing and relaxation technique class we had gone to with Gina and Ian weeks before. I was feeling nauseaus with each contraction now and breathing through the contractions was getting harder.
To be continued very soon.

A Mother's Day Tribute

First a little tribute to my mother. My mother is Colleen. She is beautiful and smart. She has a wonderful sense of humor. She has sacrificed her whole life to raise children and give them what they need. She is wonderfully affectionate. She is a great friend and teacher. She is a wonderful Nana. Mother, I love you. Mother, I do. Father in Heaven has sent me to you. Thank you for everything mom!

Now, to my second mom, Trent's mom. I am so blessed to have you in my life. You are strong and cheerful andstylish. You are so giving. You have always made me feel loved and accepted. You are an amazing Grandma! I especially want to thank you for raising such a wonderful son! Terrie I love you.

I want to wish all the mothers a happy mother's day. To all the mothers whose bodies have been forever changed from pregnancy and nursing. To all the mothers whose clothes have been smeared with spit up, snot, tears, and dirt. To all the mothers who kiss boo boos and pet the sweaty head of a child scared by a nightmare. To all the mothers who love being pregnant and all the ones who still wonder how they ever got through pregnancy. To all the women who are mothers already in their hearts if only their bodies would cooperate. To all the grandmas who relieve the mothers when they are tired enough to cry. To all the mothers who took a child in who needed a mother and loved them like their own. To all the women who have sacrificed careers for the noble calling of mother only to be called "only a homemaker" or to have said "she doesn't work." To all the mothers who work and raise children all at once. To all you mothers out there, you are brave, strong, and hard workers! Happy Mother's Day!

New Tricks

Yesterday after Tucker hid in the closet to fill his pants saying he was "being shy" he stayed dry all day! He even learned to pee outside. Silly boys. He even stayed dry all night! I told him that if he will poop in the toilet we can go to Chucky Cheese. Every time he's peed since he's asked if we can go to Chucky Cheese now. He says funny things all the time so it's hard to remember them all. Here are a couple; The other day I told him " I love you so bad" He said "Not so bad, I love you so MUCH," like I was so dumb. He always has to have his chocolate milk(instant breakfast) when he wakes up and before he goes to bed, last night I gave him pink milk(strawberry) instead and he said it was really good, but this morning when I asked him if he wanted pink milk again he said, "I need chocolate milk, I'm not so tasty about pink milk."
This may be my favorite drawing of Tucker's up to date! He was sitting on the kitchen floor drawing and showed me this-"It's a shark, and his friend." Amazing!

Charlotte has learned some cute new tricks. She can grab what she means to grab, usually links, and gets them straight to her mouth, right where she wants them. She has also discovered her feet. As soon as she is lying down she will grab hold of them and roll from side to side. I know it won't be long before she combines these tricks and can get her toes in her mouth. That was Tucker's favorite trick in the bath as a baby. Charlotte is working hard at learning to sit on her own, I can't get her to relax in her baby tub because she keeps pulling herself up from her reclined position to sit up, then she tips to the side or straight forward into her own lap. She still loves blowing bubbles and laughing at Tucker. She is pretty ticklish and very adored. Everyone constantly comments on her long, curly eyelashes and her tiny button nose.
Trent has been doing some new tricks too. With only 4 weeks left before we move and lots of projects to complete his schedule has changed. He spends Mon-Wed at his shop fixing cars and Thurs-Sat doing the home addition for Sister Bronson or finishing projects at our house. He has already gotten our new lawn even and growing grass .put closet doors in all the bedrooms,and installed a new front door. Now he is working on finishing the rock and stucco on our house and when that is finished will be finishing the updates in our master bathroom. Having him working outside here at the house has been great! Tucker gets to play outside and see Daddy and I get to see him, have lunch with him, and have a little break from Tucker.

more childhood memories

Last night when Charlotte was having a 4 AM feeding I found myself with a funny song in my head. It was Huey Lewis' (I don't know how it's spelled) The heart of Rock 'n' Roll. We used to listen to that tape a lot when I was a kid. That got me thinking of other music I listened to when I was younger. I remember doing Saturday cleaning and putting on an oldies mix record (yes an actual record in a record player) I knew all the words to all the songs. My dad would sing along with me and I loved it. Some of the songs were The leader of the pack, It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, Til her Daddy takes the T-bird away, Johnny Angel and many others. We listened to The Beatles and lots of other classics. I remember my mom listening to The Judds- Rockin with the Rythm of the Rain tape. I remember my little brother Teddy singing Touch Me, Turn Me On, and Burn Me Down all with his R's sounding like W's like kids do sometimes. I remember we had a Big Bird record that sang Everyone Makes Mistakes So Why Can't You and a safety kids record that played What is a Pedestrian and Look Both Ways. Last year Gina had a Brite Music party where I found a whole CD of my favorite childhood songs, Janeen Brady's Show a Little Love. I love music and singing and hope I can instill that in my children. Tucker loves singing and nothing is sweeter than hearing that little voice sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or Sunbeam, or "Let's Get Down to Busi-miss" (I'll Make a Man Out of You from Mulan).

Trying to look our Sunday Best

Being Strong

Tucker's new thing is to draw profile's of "scary guys" or "dinosaurs" so he can draw teeth on them or as he saysl- "I draw this one about teeth for him." He is my little artist protege. He loves drawing every morning, noon, and night. It's so great.

He is also really into flexing his muscles right now. Every time we say "healthy and strong" during the prayer he has to unfold his arms and flex for a minute. This is his flex plus straining hard to flex face. Pretty much the best face ever. I dare you not to smile when you look at it. I knew you couldn't.

This next picture is Tucker helping Charlotte flex. "Look, I make her muscles." He is turning into quite the fun big brother. He loves to make her laugh and is always asking if he can. He makes funny faces and noises and indeed she always rewards him with her darling laugh. I think they will be friends after all.
Now it's finaly official. The negotiating is over and Trent has the job at Cardon company. They are even gonna give us a little money for moving expenses. Trent has told them we will shoot to be there by June 12th. Packing has slowly started! Wow this is getting real all of the sudden. I know it is going to be time to go before I am ready. And we are moving just in time to melt upon arrival. So much to do. My life is an adventure and I plan to make the best of each step. I know this move has pros and cons, but there's no turning back now! I will be sad to leave the house we've had both our babies in, our first home that was really OURS. It has been such a great experience to see a house become a home to your family and to hold memories that can never be remade. Trent says he has more friends here than he has in Mesa at this point. It will definitely be a sad goodbye! I am still a bit shocked that we will be gone so soon.

Oh the days of Recess

I decided to look at the journal jar website Tori mentioned to get a blog idea. I want to reminice about my elementary recesses. I mostly remember 5th and 6th grade recesses. At this time of my life I lived in Sandy, UT and went to Park Lane Elementary. I had the coolest teacher in 6th grade, Mr. Gunn. He was a die hard fan of the Utah Jazz (Basketball, not music). He had red hair and big teeth. Each day he would allow us to rest our heads on our desks, dim the lights, and play us some of his favorite music. This is where I first heard Queen. I still remember he liked Symphony candy bars. This is strange because I don't remember much about any of my teachers throughout my life. He was definitely my favorite. My favorite things to do at recess were to play 4-square and jumprope-double dutch style. The jump roping was great, I can't believe I could jump rope with two ropes going opposite directions and even got good enough that I could start by jumping in from the outside after the ropes had already gotten going. I doubt I could last one minute now. If you don't know what 4-square is then I pity you, but I will explain. On the ground was a large square divided into 4 smaller squares. One player stood in each square, and you would play with one red rubber ball about the size of a basketball or a little larger. The person in the number 1 square would serve the ball to whomever and the ball would be passed around randomley until someone got out and each player would move up a square to fill the vacancy and a new player would come in. There were 2 versions of the game, the girly version and the competitive version. The girly version involved terms like "holds" (holding the ball between passes), "babies" (holding the ball and then dropping it so it barely bounce high enough to grab), and "bubbles" (holding the ball and bouncing it in your hands before passing. ) "No slams" was heard a lot in the girly version. We learned the competitive version in P.E. and it was a hit all year. There was no holding of the ball, once the game started you simply hit the ball into another players square as hard and fast or soft and slow ( you wanted to catch them off guard) as you wanted to try to get them out. If another player could not hit the ball after it bounced once in their square into another square they were out. I would love to hear about everyone elses favorite recess games. Leave a comment.

This is Tucker drawing yesterday morning. He first said it was a boat and then a dinosaur. I am frequently asked to draw sharks, dinos, Dora, Boots, and fish. Yesterday I made a chicken broccoli casserole for dinner. Tucker sniffed his food, looked up and said "That doesn't smell good," pushed his bowl away and asked for chocolate graham crackers. Trent was holding in a laugh while he told him it was good. I recently told Tucker that it makes Jesus sad when we don't hold still during the prayer and we keep talking and jumping on Daddy. So last night during prayers he kept saying," I'm making Jeseus happy." It made me happy too.

April's last weekend

Saturday morning Tucker,Charlotte and I went on a walk with the double stroller. We visited the Blackhursts for a few minutes and then went to check out the Peterson's yard sale. We then knocked on Tori's door a few times and got no answer. I think they were ignoring us, cause there were two cars in the driveway and I swear I could hear someone in there. Trent got the trampoline from Sam's club, but we've got to get the yard ready before setting it up. Trent and Tucker spent most of the day outside working on the yard. Trent rototilled the entire thing, front and back and then raked it spread grass seed and reraked. It was a long day. Tucker loved being outside in the gorgeous 70' weather pushing his plastic wheelbarrow all around. Later that night Tucker put some sunglasses around his neck and held them there with his chin and said, "I'm a doctor and I'm gonna check you out." His checkout of Trent involved an arm tickling and a little dance! Fabulous.
Sunday after church Trent realized how entertaining his kids could be. He smushed Charlotte's face into several chubby masterpieces and had a good laugh. She didn't seem to mind a bit. She really likes her Daddy time. We all do.

Trent got his job offer Friday, we are still doing a bit of negotiating and he should be emailed a written proposal today with all the details. I am trying to find some boxes today to start packing and organizing the things we don't use that much.

I have a couple more pictures to add but blogger is not cooperating right now. I'll try a bit later.