Spring Pictures

 

We finished school a couple of weeks ago and got straight onto our summer schedule. Most of the kids are reading, but will do more as the summer progresses.

We got our cute cayuga ducklings. They're outside in the daytime now, but still in at night.

Everyone is doing well. We're all still here and still fairly isolated.

Some cute things:

When Sam tried to wake Susan up from a nap, she said, "Stop! I am busy. I am busy right now."

We watched the carton: Avatar the Last AirBender. One morning everyone was talking about their Avatar dream and I said, "If you didn't dream about Avatar last night raise your hand." John, Johnny, and Adam were the only ones who raised a hand.


Continuing with Avatar, Sam built a lego ship with a gun on each side and said, "This one shoots fire and the other one shoots water." We thought that was funny as they cancel each other out. But Sam clearly thought that both were powerful weapons.

Since I will have the baby at home, I've had some of the interested kids watch birth blogs with me. Susan watched one and had all sorts of questions and funny things to say. She pointed to my belly button and said, "I thought that the baby comes out here." She also said that she was going to marry Sam and that when she has a baby come out, it will come out in the my bedroom.

Sam got tired of hair in is eyes and he chopped it close to his scalp. So now Sam has a very short hair cut for the first time in his life.

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The Bath, Gideon, and Monsters

While in the bathtub another kid on the outside of the door started banging it and shaking the door knob. I jokingly said to Gideon that it's a monster. Gideon got scared and clung to me and hid behind my back. After a time, Gideon calmed down and played and washed up. When I said that I was going, Gideon said no, no, pointed to the door and said ROAR!

I suggested going a few more times with the same result. Finally, I told Gideon that Dad had gotten the monster out and we were safe now.

Gideon pointed to the door and said ROAR gone? I said yes and Gideon climbed out of the bathtub. When I told the story Gideon checked up with me and asked, "Dad, roar, gone?"

 

A Birthday, Easter, and General Conference

 

Saturday was Rachel's 15th birthday and General Conference and Sunday was Easter and General Conference. We're still celebrating actually. Our lamb dinner is cooking and we're going to spend an hour reading all of the scriptures on the crucifixion in the New Testament. 

Suzy reminded me several times about getting to find candy on Easter and I told her that we might or might not. What she did not know was that I got a few little gifts to surprise the little kids this year. They got some new coloring books, crazy straws, balloons, and sidewalk chalk and all of them even as old as Kate enjoyed those little items. It took them a while to start hunting for candy because they were happily engaged with their little things. 

Gideon was funny. He chose out a balloon and a coloring book and one piece of candy and sat down beside me on the couch and would not get up. He kept asking for a number of things but would do nothing for himself for about an hour and a half.

In between conference sessions, a bunch of the kids sat in the sun with the sidewalk chalk. It's been a good day.

Rachel is still happily slowly growing and not dealing with everything woman yet. Which is not a big deal. I was 15 and a half and my mom was 16 and Kate was nearly 15 so we're women who develop and grow slowly. But Rachel is still cute and likes cute things. She's imaginative. She does not like school but might be enjoying reading more when she picks out her own books to read. Rachel likes to discuss the virtues of laziness, but we're not at all convinced. She's a fun daughter and an integral part of our family and so much her own little self. We love Rachel. 

We now have only three weeks of school left. This year I'll give them two weeks off before starting a summer program. They're not too happy, but I think it is necessary, especially for Adam and Rachel. 

Johnny is still doing a lot of computer programing with Adam and Joseph and I think that they're progressing some. 

The garden is dug up but we had a big frost. We lost all of the flowers on our wisteria bush and several tomato and squash plants that I had purchased but strawberries, celery, cauliflower, and oregano survived. I have not checked but I expect our young potatoes, turnips, and carrots survived too as they do better in the colder weather and die in the heat. But we have a lot to do for gardening and yard work.

We have finished all of the General sessions of General Conference but took off the priesthood session to spend time doing what Rachel wanted to do. We'll probably do the priesthood session this Monday or next Sunday for home church. 

I'm 23 weeks pregnant now and feeling the baby move everyday. I'm still very tired. It's hard to be pregnant at 45 but I'm sure that I will feel as blessed with this baby of my old age as I did with the babies of my youth. I am solid on the importance of strong godly families and no matter how the world turns on views of that family, I never will. 

Pictures