Sweet Marian

Today I was talking to Marian about her upcoming baptism. We were talking about something for Primary and she was so doggone cute. I had to write down what she said, and this is verbatim-

"Jesus is like a beautiful yellow butterfly standing on your shoulder. He does not leave you very lonely. He's like a spirit like right next to you by our side. So He's like a beautiful butterfly standing right next to you by your side."

Such a sweet, wonderful girl I have!

Sneaking Nutella

Delaney made herself a Nutella sandwich the other day. She left the jar on the counter and when I walked into the kitchen, this is what I found!

Rylee was eating the Nutella out of the jar with her fingers. When she saw me, she immediately stopped and handed me the jar.

I was busy with the camera, taking her picture, so she started nibbling the chocolate off her hand.

Then she set the Nutella on the counter and tried to screw on the lid.

Delaney had pretty much cleared out the jar, so there wasn't much left. I put Rylee in her chair and let her polish off the rest of the jar.

One messy, messy girl!

Like Winnie the Pooh with his honey-pot, scooping the yummy goodness out!

She did make a mess, and she did a good job of cleaning out the jar. Then I had to clean her up!

Spring Break!

This past week the kids were home from school. We had a great time!

Okay, this was from last Saturday, when Callie went to a birthday party. This was her purple hair for her "Mad Scientist" party. She thought it was great!

The girls and I went on a short library trip. Rylee had a marvelous time running and hiding and leaving a trail of books on the floor behind her. Thus, the short trip.

We practiced architectural design with toothpicks and marshmallows.

Marian says this is a school bus.

We went to the Rec Center pool. A very good time was had by all!

I had to haul Rylee out because she was shivering and blue, but she wanted back in.

The girls had an absolute blast at the pool and I think they were all turning blue after 2 hours, but they said they were not cold!

Daddy came home bearing presents!

We went on a hike with the scouts.

The kids saw lots of frogs, and there were claims of a numerous host of other animals being spotted- but I think most were imaginary.

Rylee did not want to ride in the stroller and she leaned so far over this little railing I was sure she was going to fall in. Fortunately, no one went in the marsh.

After a long flight and night, with an extremely early arrival, Joshua sacked out at 5pm.

After that long wearying hike, Delaney also sacked out!

Oh yeah, and we went to Busch Gardens with our friends! That was a LOT of fun!

I was surprised which children loved this ride, and which ones did not.

The kids had fun posing for this picture.

Check out Delaney. She was so funny and loved these grapes.

Dino-land was the favorite spot. Unfortunately, the giant tree house had too many unsupervised ways for the kids to get lost. They had a marvelous time, while us grown ups stressed about where they all were. (4 adults and 10 children was not the best ratio!)

I was astonished how many kiddie-friendly rides were all over the park. Delaney had so much fun riding so many rides!

Even Rylee could ride!

This was one of the favorite rides. It spun them like a slingshot and they loved it. They rode it 4 or 5 times. The lines were super-short by late afternoon and it was a lot of fun to run right into the rides with no wait.

So, Spring Break was very fun-filled and eventful. It also went by really fast! I can't believe I have to get back into routine again tomorrow. I guess that means I should get to bed.

The Grand Adventures of Josh and his Dad

Based on Dan's posts about their trip, you know that Joshua and Dan went to Switzerland. Let me broaden the tale a bit and wrap up what may become endless postings. Dan and Joshua went on a 3 week trip to Europe. They flew Space-A to Italy, where they hung out with some brand new friends, a fantastic missionary couple who were friends of friends. They spent a few days checking out Italy. Then they headed to Switzerland. They got to spend a few days with my aunt and uncle just before they left their mission and headed back home. Dan and Joshua then went to Germany where they got to see Dan's cousin Elaine, his best friend Kirk, and some friends of ours, the Budds. After a whole 3 weeks, (did I mention that they got to play for 3weeks?!!), yes, well, after 3 weeks, they flew home Space A. Only Dan can plan a trip flying Space-A and magically get on the first flights he wants. The man is blessed!

Maybe not quite so blessed- they did get on the flight they wanted, but it arrived in the wee hours of the morning. Dan was thoughtful enough to take public transportation from BWI to our house. I think he left the airport around 4 or 5 in the morning and he walked in the door at 8am Wednesday. It was nice to have my boys home! I dragged Joshua out for a hike that afternoon and wore the poor kid out. Pictures of that in another post to follow...

Today, you get pictures of their trip. And I apologise in advance for the dark smear in the corner of some. There is a scratch on the camera lens and its killing me! But, back to the pictures- I have no idea what most are. If they get a caption, it will be later, when I make Dan sit down and do it! But here is some of the stuff they did (out of 700 pictures!):

(Some of these descriptions under the pics are written by Josh)

We did a day trip over the border into France...Strasbourg that is.

This is the view of Heidelberg from the castle on the hill.

Josh was TOLD to do this! P.S. This is at the Mercedes Benz Museum, NOT legoand!

Neuenschwanstein Castle; the inspiration for the famous Disney Castle

The Swarovski Crystal headquarters outside Innsbruck, Austria was really neat.

Fifteen gelatos in three weeks?! He needs more!

If you try to sneak in, you'll turn to Lego!

Switzerland, part 3

Now you know Joshua was truly there. To his right was a ski lift and lots of skiers taking advantage of what will probably be the final snow of the season. It was early April, and the lower areas did not have snow anymore.
This was an interesting activity on the waterfront. It made a whirlpool inside the container.
This monument was dedicated to Swiss guards who were killed in the line of duty when the French Revolution took place. You can see an arrow is in the lion's side, and it is slowly dying.

Except for the Matterhorn, which is much further south of Luzern, here are some pictures of Luzern. The bridge pictured above was the longest standing wood bridge in Europe until a fire in 1993. They restored it best as possible. A beautiful city with lots to see. There were some great activities for which I didn't include pictures, but were very interesting. These were the Panorama painting, which commemorates a great humanitarian effort to the French over 120 years ago, and the Transportation Museum, which was great for kids and adults alike.

Switzerland, part 2

Normally to me the idea of what this statue portrays would not come across as humorous on my most open-minded of days. However, I thought somebody would like to see the Swiss version of the Boogeyman. I have looked on the Internet and found only Kinder-fresser, which is interpreted as ogre. In any case, Swiss children are scared by ogre into doing the right thing, and this statue in Bern, Switzerland is proof of the tale. Sorry for the short post. I can't seem to download much from these large pictures I am taking, so Rebecca may need to help get some things on the blog after I get home. Joshua and I are on the tail end of this once in a lifetime trip, and hope to be back with the family again in just a few days. Dan

Seriously?!

I am suppose to be working on a talk. I am speaking in church tomorrow and I have been working on it ever since I was asked, about 8 days ago. The problem is this- I cannot work on it! Every single time I sit down, somebody needs me. Every time I try to form a coherent thought, it is interrupted by crying, whining, shouting, screaming or some one's little fingers pushing on my bottom to get me out of the chair. Yeah, that's really helpful.

Why don't I work on it at night? I do. I really do. I did. I did most of the work on it when the kids were asleep. I even stayed up past 11pm the other night. Do I work on it at nap time? Not so much. I'm still in the "Nap when the baby naps" phase and if I'm not napping when Rylee is, its because there is something I HAVE to do. I suppose I have to write a talk, but I didn't think it would take me all week! I didn't think it was going to be written in 2 minute segments. This talk stuff shouldn't be this complicated!

I tried to get it done all day today. Between the errands, the neediness, and the 2 hour power outage, I didn't get anything done. I was hoping I could finish it tonight once the kids were in bed and still make it to bed myself at a decent hour. 3 of the children are in their rooms right now. Of those 3, none are asleep. One is actively crying and screaming "Mom!" That's the one in the crib who woke me up at 7 this morning, so there's no love here right now. That's the one who has prevented any real work on this talk as well. I certainly can't work right now either. All I hear is "MOM!" and the tears. Nope. Not conducive to trying to feel the Spirit.

Thus, I blog.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is an update:

Rylee fell asleep after 9 pm. She woke up 30 minutes later crying. I was up till 11pm and finished my talk. It seemed well-received today and went much better than I expected. Oh yes, I was not alone in writing or giving it. And I wave a wonderful ward. I had plenty of offers to help with the kids and I did not have to worry about them at all.

I'm still here.

Dan and Joshua have been gone about 3 weeks now. I have been quite remiss in posting about what's been going on here at the homestead. There are several reasons for this. First, Dan took my good camera and as you will notice, blurry shots are not helpful. Plus, the red eye in them doesn't seem correctable by the simple program I have. Its all a bit frustrating, and therefore, not really happening. The second reason is this: Nothing is happening. We've had little that is blog-worthy, and we have not done much of interest. If we don't do interesting things, then I have to be interesting and this was not a good week for that! Which leads to reason number 3: Allergies have been so bad that I can barely stand myself, so blogging hasn't been appealing to me.

See, blurry shot. Cute kid though! The girls have been getting along fabulously well. We all went to dinner at Chili's the other night and they were pretty good. It was fun to go out, just us girls!

I finally gave in and went to the doctor. That was a 10 minute visit. This shot of Delaney was during the hour long wait at the pharmacy. Picture taking was one of the entertainments to distract her and Rylee from the boredom. I walked home with no less than 4 prescriptions (2 of which I'd already been taking), and in case you are wondering, no, I don't feel better. I feel worse. Not only are my eyes still streaming and itchy, and my throat itches and my nose alternates between being runny and clogged.... now my chest is gunky and hurts. So not only are the allergy meds NOT working, their nasty side effects are. Ug.

Rylee is into all sorts of mischief these days. I will mention only that if the back door is unlocked, she does know how to open it and will disappear into the neighbor's carport before you can find her. This one is big trouble!

The most fun thing this week was going to Delaney's preschool consignment sale. They have so much stuff! The girls wanted to go and I gave them a dollar amount and said they could pick one thing to buy. Marian chose a pull-along dog. Callie got a plastic drum. Delaney picked up a pretty pink box that looked like it had some nail polish in it. Since they were all very good and let me peruse to my heart's content, I said yes to all 3 things. Unfortunately, once we got home, I made the unwelcome discovery that Delaney's box contained multiple little lip glosses, and Delaney thought they were eye shadow. Isn't she lovely?!! The sad thing is that its been 2 days and she's had a bath, and been thoroughly scrubbed, but her eyes are still pink-rimmed!

And lest you think that there was no excitement around here at all, I will have you know that we had a front row seat to something very exciting yesterday morning! This is how Callie and Marian spent all their time before leaving for school. I got the blow-by-blow report as things went down. The girls were enthralled. What were they looking at?

There was a fire truck and an ambulance in front of our house yesterday morning! I thought I was going to have to walk to school (which is horrible for my allergies and leaves me runny nosed, red eye-d and headachey for the rest of the day), but they all left 2 minutes before we had to leave. Lest you think we are callous and unkind people, I'll alleviate your fears and tell you that our elderly neighbor had a diabetes issue and couldn't get her blood sugar under control. So she got a ride to and from the hospital in style yesterday, and she is fine.