Rachel and Anya Dance

Last night, Rachel and Anya had their first dance recital at an elementary school fair. All of the little girls were just so cute. Rachel danced her dance the entire time, but she didn't exactly stay in the place she was supposed too. Anya stayed in the place she was suppose to, but she quit dancing part way through to look at some of the older dancers practicing in the back ground. They are just darling. I can't wait to see the entire performance on stage in a few more weeks!

We had a hard time getting Rachel to smile because she wanted fair food.

Rachel's Prayer

Rachel always has the funniest prayers. Before Joshua was born, Rachel prayed that we would name the new baby, Joshua Booger. Tonight during family prayer, and last night during her bedtime prayers, Rachel pleaded in her prayer for Unicorns, Dinosaurs, and Dragons to be real. Tonight, Rachel also pleaded that summer would come soon. I hope summer does come soon, but I doubt unicorns are real.

I find It Funny

I find it funny that Ruth calls Kate a pessimist and Kate responds by saying she is a "Realist".

Our First 5K

Well, I was going to run my first 5K on Saturday, but I injured my ankle/foot. Since the race was in our neighborhood, I thought I'd try anyway-- not a good idea. Here is what happened. Ruth and Kate and their friend, Bonnie started out with me. The middle of the course, was actually our house. I knew right away that my ankle was getting worse. So, I stopped at our house after the first 1.5 miles. John caught up with the girls, and ran the other 1.5 miles. Ruth and Kate ran the whole 5K. I am proud of my little girls, and a little disappointed that I did not run the whole way, but glad in another way.

I could hardly walk the rest of the day on Saturday, and I am still having a lot of trouble. This sprain is particularly bad because the pain goes around to the bottom of my foot. Since, I walk on the bottom of my foot, every step hurts. I probably shouldn't have run at all. We are planning on doing a "whole family with strollers" 5K in May. We will see how that goes. I am taking this week off on exercise. I will need a dead line like another 5K to get me back on track after a weeks vacation. I am so bad at exercise. Hopefully my ankle/foot will be better by Friday. My job makes it impossible for me to stay down much.

In all, I think my husband is cool because when he ran the second half with the kids, he had them run real fast to beat other runners. For me, it is just, "okay, lets just go slow and steady, as long as we run the whole time."  And I think my girls are great for running their first 5K and running almost the whole way. I know that I could not run 3.2 miles when I was 11 or 13.

More on Joseph

Joseph is so funny. He loves to laugh-- he just loves humor. When we say no to Joseph, he wags his finger at us, laughs and says, "no,no,no." It is hard to punish the kid. If I start to get mad at all, he laughs and acts like it is all just a joke. I love it! How can you not?  But sometimes, I go ahead and remove him to his room or make him clean his mess-- like when he decides to color the wall or rip a library book. He can still be a stinker-- just a funny one.

Joseph talks a whole bunch compared to most of our kids at 21 months. He astounds all of us (that talk already) every day. He speaks in 4 to 5 word sentences. He is our second big mouth. Like Kate, Joseph is never quiet, and he has a lot to say. One of his favorite things to say right now is, "Mom, look..." He is constantly showing me things.

Yesterday he figured out how to build his wooden train track. Every time he put another piece on the track, he would throw both of his arms into the air, shout, "Mom, look! My tain." Then he would do a little dance.

Joseph has been bringing books up to show to Joshua. When Joshua is in his swing, Joseph will bring over a book and turn all of the pages for him. Joshua, even though he gets knocked by the book some, smiles the whole time. It is nice that they are so close in age and really seem to enjoy each other. Joseph is a fun kid!

Easter

We had a good Easter. We did Easter bunny stuff on Easter, which in the past we have postponed for a week to get the candy on the 75% off sale. But this year John wanted to be like every one else and do Easter candy on Easter, and I wanted not so much candy as we get when it is 75% off.

Surprisingly, none of the candy stuff seemed to take away from the real meaning of Easter. I have always been quite clear that there is no such thing as an Easter Bunny, so that is not an issue. The 4 oldest kids stuffed the plastic eggs, and Ruth and Kate helped hide the eggs. Then they all found candy filled eggs Easter morning. Ruth and Kate were rather bossy about the proper way to find eggs, so we will not let them hide the eggs in the future. However, Ruth and Kate went to the thrift store the day before and bought the other 6 kids stuffed bunnies. I was very touched with their generosity. They enjoyed putting all the presents they bought into the Easter baskets.

After the kids ate a jelly bean, chocolate breakfast, and I cleaned up a jelly bean chocolate breakfast mess (about an hour clean up). We had a very nice lesson about Easter. I got the lesson idea from another blogger here. We didn't do the treat part, but the lesson part went amazingly well. The kids seemed to gain a deeper appreciation of what the Savior suffered for us. Thanks for posting the idea other blog mom.

Church was next from 1 to 4. Then we came home and made a big ham dinner with our favorite orange rolls. The orange rolls were our favorite part of the dinner. We could have just had orange rolls and I think we would have still felt like it was a holiday dinner. My brother and Sister came for the dinner. We had fun chatting with them. And thanks to Duncan Hines we had a cake for dessert.

I did a terrible job at planning for Easter this year. We lucked out and had a nice celebration of the Resurrection and Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. We are so grateful for His love and sacrifice. What a blessing it is to have these truths in our life and to know that because of Jesus Christ's sacrifices, we can live as a happy family forever.

Kid Stuff

John said, "I'm such a dufus." Anya excitedly replied, "I want to do fisses too."

Ruth brought Adam's size five pajamas for John to put on 18 month sized Joseph. Rachel knew right away just from seeing  the material that those were Adam's pajamas. John disagreed until he unfolded them. He still put them on Joseph to tease Ruth.

I brought Joseph and Adam to the mountains for a short walk while Rachel and Anya were in their dance class. For about the first ten minutes, Joseph would point up and say, "Look Mom, tees." It was soooo cute. Adam was really excited to be in the mountains too. I can't wait to take him hiking this summer.