Saturday

• 24-hours free of all responsibilities
• at least 10 yard sales
• 8 stores
• some really great deals (who can argue with 90% off?)
• more money than I care to admit
• lunch with some of the family (courtesy of Dad!)
• a pretzel at the mall
• 4 scents from Bath & Body Works
• lots of walking (very tired feet and hips)
• a handful of dressing rooms
• some new maternity clothes

=

1 pretty happy, relaxed, pregnant wife and mother!

(at least for the day)

Thanks Kannon!!!!!

Silly Sarah

This was the weather we had on Tuesday afternoon. It had been such a nice day before, that this totally surprised me. We had to build a fire about then because it just got so cold. A fire again yesterday, and this morning. But, I'm about ready to let it go out, now. Next week we're supposed to hit 80! I guess that's spring for you.

Ben took this scary picture of me last night when I was giving Sarah her bath. You can kind of see my belly in it. I had a call from the doctors office yesterday that got me nervous. I'd had my glucose test the week before and thought they were going to tell me I was in trouble. But, my glucose is fine - my iron is low. Not a big surprise - it's been low in all my pregnancies. I just haven't been taking my supplement like I'm supposed to. Oops!


So, Sarah has made me laugh a lot lately. She says the cutest things. I guess a lot of kids her age do that, too. Thought I'd share some with you.





She's discovered painting. It's easy for her to do alone and it's not hard to clean up. The other day she came to me with her paper and paints and paint shirt telling me she wanted to paint.


Me - who said you could paint?


Sarah - Heavenly Father.


She often comes to me and says, "Mommy, my tummy says 'feed me, feed me!'"


Kannon took the kids for a walk around the block last week. He was telling them "Don't step on the crack or you'll break your mothers' back." Sarah phrased it a little differently.

Sarah - Don't step on your Dad's back, it will hurt, and Dad will get mad!

Benjamin turns 6!

(I had my camera on the night setting, so these pictures are kind of fuzzy.)

My "little" boy is growing up. And too fast!

We ended up celebrating his birthday a day early. Kannon changed his teaching days to Mon. and Weds. So, we did the presents and cake on Tuesday. Benjamin invited his Grammy and Papa to come, too. I let Ben choose his own dinner. I thought I could make his favorite meal. But, he wanted to go to McDonald's so they could get kids meals with the "Monsters vs. Aliens" toys. We are NOT fans of McD's. We just don't like the food there. So, we ended up going to 3 drive-thrus. I picked Burger King and Kannon was craving Taco Bell. Altogether we spent under $20, so I was okay. After we ate (at home) Grammy and Papa showed up and we opened presents. This is the apron Grammy made for him. He told me what he wanted - Kannon wants one, too, so they can be "grill masters" together. She also made him a Scooby-Doo shirt that she brought over on his actual birthday. He wears it whenever it is clean!

(Ben typed some of this himself - it's in parenthesis.)

Ben likes this picture of him wearing his new spy goggles. The spy theme is his "thing" these days. He also got a paper airplane book, some science projects to do, 3 Cars semi-trucks, (sarah) bought (a car for ben she pickt it out at the store.) He got a few books and lots of cards.

Ben took pictures ( of his presens). I thought that was kind of cute. Here are a few of them.

We had a Boston Creme Pie for his cake. He always wants a yellow cake with pudding in it and chocolate frosting. I had a recipe from a magazine for the pie (which is really just a cake, so why do they call it a pie?). I showed him the picture of it and he said that would be good. He also got to pick out an ice cream from Schwan's. He chose Rocky Road. Grandpa Polish would be proud. Then there was playing with the toys, of course. Even Daddy got in on the action.

I can't believe he's already six. Only 2 more years to teach him everything he needs to know before his baptism. And we've finally made the decision to send him to school next year. We've been praying about it for a LONG time. The other day, as we walked to a friends' house, we passed the school and I just had the thought that that is where he needs to be. The next day, Ben told me he wants to go to school when he's 7. So we talked about school starting when he's 6 1/2 or 7 1/2. He picked 6 1/2. When I told Kannon about all of this, he just nodded his head. To me, that's the best I'm going to get as an agreement. But, I've been pretty relieved and even happy since then and that decision.

So, on his actual birthday he got a surprise delivery of balloons, and some special phone calls - about 5 or 6! Thanks to everyone who remembered him.

Easter 09

We started our Easter activities on Friday evening with the egg dying. When we were done, I thought it was interesting that most of them were blue. That must have been the favorite. Everyone had a good time and I even got to do a few.

Saturday, Kannon was a judge for a welding competition in Reno. So, he was gone all day. The kids and I packed up our stuff and went out to my parents house. I got to take a long-needed shower (ours is still incomplete). Then, after much prompting, I hid easter eggs in the front yard. Then it was a free-for-all. I'm so glad Sarah doesn't care about getting the same amount as her brother, or that he was finding them faster than her. She just did it and had fun. Benjamin filled his basket, would shake it, squash it, and say, "I think I can find just one more."

We relaxed out there for the rest of the morning - until nap time. My parents had been out of town for awhile. We hadn't seen them for almost 2 weeks. So, it was nice to see them and visit a bit.

I'm so grateful that my parents raised me the way they did. We always did the easter bunny, egg hunt part of Easter on Saturday. That way Sunday could be devoted to the real meaning of Easter - the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We started our week with an FHE about Easter and have been reading scriptures all week that correspond with the Savior's last week of his life. It's really been good for me - keeping the real meaning of Easter alive for me. I hope it was good for the kids - well, Ben anyway. And on Sunday we had an early FHE for this week, with a review of the crucifixion using plastic eggs filled with scriptures and items to represent each scripture. It was good. We also had pictures on the fridge to remind us.

We ended our Easter week with dinner at my Uncle's house. It was good to see my cousin and her family. We brought a ham steak and homemade rolls. A delicious potluck and lots of visiting. Ben loved playing outside with Joanne's kids. I really wish he had more opportunities to play with others. He needs to learn more give and take in his friendships. I'm learning that he's a little bossy!

This is the view of the sunset from my uncle's front yard. Wish we could see them more often without all the houses and wires, etc. that we see in town. Love the Nevada sunsets!

iHeartFaces - week 13 - My Friend and I

I wanted to try my hand at this. I've loved checking out some of the pictures on "iHeartFaces". I took this picture of Benjamin and his best friend, Hyrum, last summer. Sadly, Hyrum moved away a few months ago. They still keep in contact, mailing pictures and letters every once in awhile. I just loved how comfortable they seemed standing together here. This picture seemed to fit the category perfectly.

My friend and I

Creation

Isn't spring just the perfect time to enjoy the creations?

This last week, Kannon had Tues. thru Fri. off - again. It's like little layoffs every few weeks. Kind of stressful. He's back to work this week and also started teaching another welding class, so that will help. While he was home we had some sickness in the house. Ben was first with a fever, etc. (last post). Sarah was like that on Monday and Kannon took over on Tuesday - so it's probably good he didn't have work. He slept most of the day and felt better on Weds. Well enough to spend the day welding in Reno. When he got home he said he was thinking about working on the bathroom. I said sure.

In the meantime I did the regular stuff and tried not to be too irritated that he was feeling unwell. I don't do so well when he's sick. Gratefully it's been awhile. My dad was hardly ever sick and when he was he didn't complain and usually still worked. So, I guess I feel like every male should be like that. Kannon was the oldest and was a little babied, I think, as far as illness goes. Since we've been married I've had to learn patience - lots of it!

So, I got creative, and after a trip to the dollar store I took two of these:

And created this:



And this:

They are for my pay-it-forward deal. They will contain something cool, too. So, Margaret and Angie - be on the lookout!

Like I said, Kannon got the remodel bug - or maybe we could call it the creation bug. He took our bathroom that looked like this: (the exposed wall is from 3 years ago when we walled off the door to the bedroom).

And this:

And created a mess! Not really. But, we ended up running out of time and money and haven't got it finished yet. We still need to buy the backerboard and then we can tile the bath area. I'll be really happy when it's all done, because right now we are a bath only house - no showers. Plus, in all the work, somewhere along the way we ended up with worse drainage problems than ever. We used to have issues when the water would drain from the washer. It would back up a little into the kitchen sink. Now, it backs up in both kitchen sinks, the bathroom sink and the tub! Plus, none of them are draining well. Ugh! It seems pretty ironic that my husband, the "plumber" - aka pipefitter/welder - doesn't know how to fix this problem yet. He's trying hard, though. And in his defense, he really isn't a "plumber". He does new construction mostly -pipefitting and a lot of welding.

This is the space for the new tub - which isn't really new. It came from a remodel job Kannon did a few years ago and has been sitting on our deck since then! But, at least it's not blue.

The faucet for the blue tub was on the left side against the wall. The faucet for the white tub is on the right, therefore we had to build a pony wall and move the piping for the plumbing. This is Kannon's feet as he moved into the crawl hole to get under the house. In his job, this is the one thing he hates above all others. He's never been under our house until now - 4 years. It was a tight fit. I had to boost his legs in for him. This is at my eye level from our little cellar.

And Ben and I sat on the bathroom floor handing Kannon whatever he needed to get the job underneath done. He ended up having to go in twice. Too bad that's not the end of it - still have to do something about the drainage issue.

Here's the aftermath of the first bath in the new tub. Since then we've added shower curtains to cover the green sheet rock so that it doesn't get wet. My first bath was cool. Literally. Kannon had turned the hot water heater off when he'd had to turn the water off. He forgot to turn it back on, so my bath was luke-warm. It was a fast one and last night I borrowed a shower after the kids were in bed. Thanks Julie!

General Conference weekend went pretty good. Other than me having some issues with everyone. This was the first session. Sarah must not have been feeling great, cause she was asleep by 9:30. I think Kannon enjoyed holding her. Ben kept busy marking a chart of topics he heard spoken in conference. The mess is from our 72-hour food packs. We try to rotate them every October conference but missed it last year. So, Kannon wanted to eat only our kits for the 2 days of conference. By Saturday night I wanted real food. We were quickly reminded that this is "real food" for an emergency - but not for everyday eating. If anyone is interested I can do a post of our kits. They fit into a gallon-sized bag.

Sunday afternoon - Ben and Kannon played with the

Jenga blocks. . . . .

while Sarah and I took a much-needed nap.

And now we're back to life as we know it. I'm trying to stay calm and firm with the kids. Sarah ended up spending from 11-3 in her room yesterday because she wouldn't pick up the jellybeans she knocked on the floor when she got mad.

And Ben's been in a lot of trouble lately for his disrespect, pride, not taking responsibility, hitting - you name it, he's done it. Today has been pretty good, so far. Sarah only had to stay in her room for 30 minutes before she was ready to apologize to Ben for hitting him. Much better than the 4 hours yesterday. And I ended up doing some video of Ben during FHE last night. After watching it today, he's been more responsive to my reminders of his attitude. Hopefully that will work for awhile! Plus, he's got a birthday coming up and maybe our threats of no gifts will spur some behavior changes as well. And that's a reminder to all you family - remember how important a birthday is to a child. Anything you can do to make it memorable would be great. April 15 - next Wednesday!