First Cut

Sariah made her first attempt at cutting out fabric from pattern pieces today. It was an enthusiastic start but became frustrating working with fabric paper. Nonetheless, I joy in the thought of teaching her to sew---something I so enjoy.

It's something I'm trying not to reinforce, but it is so humorous and cute. In complete context, Hyrum is exclaiming a handful of times a day, "What da heck?" Bryant doesn't say it very often, but I guess it only takes once.

Talmage picked up the whole house for me tonight so I didn't have to do so much bending. I'm so grateful. Grateful not to have to bend, but even more grateful for such a sweetheart of a boy.

A Wedding and a Birthday

I was at the doctor's office for nearly 5 hours today! Two weeks ago when I asked him about flying down to Kase's wedding (a one hour flight) he recommended I get up and walk a little. Today I wanted to tell him that I sat nearly five times as long in his waiting room! The good news is everything looks good with Baby A and Baby B. (We really are going to have to name them sometime.) I measured at 37 weeks and tomorrow will be 30 actual weeks. That means I'm measuring 1 week short of when I delivered with Hyrum. They better not get any ideas!

Had a wonderful, CRAZY weekend with all my siblings at Kase's wedding in Salt Lake. He and his new wife, Brielle were sealed by Elder Bednar and it was powerful! I left my camera home on purpose for James to capture Hyrum's Easter morning, so a few pics are here. Kase was happy and is now part of a new, great family.

Something super sweet I have to record. Last Thursday while climbing a shelf, Sariah knocked off a little wooden box in which I kept a tiny tea set given to me about 20 years ago as a birthday gift from a good friend. It shattered everywhere. She felt awful of course. When Talmage came home from school he found out about the mishap. I was working at the sewing machine and some time later he came to me and asked me if I had a tiny box. I told him I didn't have a tiny box but I now had an empty wooden box. He went and got it and came and showed me what was inside as tears welled up in his eyes. He said he was so sorry that my tea set had been broken and then he opened up the box to reveal a tiny tea set ---each piece drawn, colored with tiny pink and yellow flowers (just like mine), and cut out. Does it get any more precious? I now have a tea set much more valuable than the one I started out with.

Bryant turned eight yesterday.

His choice for classroom treats - twinkies.
His choice for dinner - Little Ceasar's pizza and rootbeer.
(Grandpa, Grandma, and Laryn as well as the Bergesons were on their way home from Utah and stopped in. That was a treat for Bryant.)
His choice of birthday cake - mud pie.

He was a super pleasant boy all day long, and he said his favorite gift was his new scriptures. In fact, he went to bed with them. He told me since he got new scriptures he wrote in the copy of the Book of Mormon he keeps at school and gave it to his teacher. He said he wrote his testimony in his writing journal and asked his teacher to tell him if he thought the Book of Mormon was true. What a great, little missionary!

Homerun

Bryant played his first ever little league game this week. His first at bat was a hit that went over the heads of the center and right fielder and Bryant never slowed down. I hoped he wouldn't be disappointed from there on. I didn't need to worry. At bat #2 was a line drive in the same direction but in little league there is enough confusion that Bryant just kept running and he made it home again. #3 was over the left fielder's head and you can guess...another homerun. As we were walking away from the game he was pretty excited and we were talking about his homeruns and I said something like, "It's because you just kept running." His response in total innocence was, "Well aren't homeruns the point of baseball?" What do you say to that?

Student of the Month

Today I was able to attend a luncheon with the Exchange Club who honored Bryant as McGee Elementary's student of the month. It was such a privilege to be with this very shy little man as he received this great honor. The Exchange Club is a service group which specifically advocates programs and services against child abuse.

FHE Activity

This evening was Bryant's first baseball practice. He loved it.
For our FHE activity we went through a few baseball basics.

Spring Break

Just prior to spring break, Talmage performed in his choir concert as an
icon of the disco era. He loves to perform and did a great job.

Bryant and I got home from our Saturday visit to look at dogs and go to the grocery store, and as soon as I walked in the door I heard the pitter-patter (the heavy kind) of Hyrum's feet. As soon as he saw me, he said in his deep Harley voice, "my bike." He was so proud. James had pulled out our tiniest bike, patched the tires, put the training wheels back on, and Hyrum couldn't have been happier.


We left for Utah last Saturday at 6am and made our best time ever, 11 hours, and succeeded in getting James to Santaquin so he could attend priesthood session of General Conference with his Dad. It was 71 degrees in Santaquin that day. We woke up early the next morning and got James and the boys ready to head to Salt Lake to attend a live session of General Conference and when we walked upstairs there were 8 inches of snow and cars sliding off the freeway. With an hour and a half travel to Salt Lake in front of them, we decided we'd have to try again another time and opted to watch it broadcasted.

Conference Morning in Santaquin.

Monday we headed for our annual visit to the Bean Museum.

(Talmage actually walked away from the gift shop without spending a penny.)

Then we went for a tour of the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU.
It was a quick walk through as it was lunch time.

We met up with Kase at the Cougar Eat and had BYU Creamery ice cream for dessert. The kids decided that was a good enough reason to attend BYU.

Tuesday, Mom Hales showed me how to use her long arm quilting machine on the quilt I started 2 years ago for my sister's graduation. I had so much fun. Too much fun. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I couldn't go back to sleep thinking about quilting projects.

Wednesday, we went to visit James's siblings. Debbie and Paige took us to Costco for lunch and then their fitness club for swimming. It was perfect.

James was so good to do this for two hours, over and over and over again. In Hyrum's words, "jump two times." That means a lot, and it was.

And Thursday we traveled and traveled some more. We are so grateful for happy travelers (promoted by our "traveling bank".)