First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, Then Comes . . .

MOTHER'S DAY!!

But let's back up to the love and marriage part first. Thanks to an awesome neighbor who was willing to do a swap with us, Chris and I were able to celebrate our 10 YEAR anniversary by spending two nights at a bed and breakfast down in Cayucos, California along the coast. It was awesome!! We took a walk along the pier and watched some surfers, dined on some fine cuisine (so fine, in fact, that I didn't know what I was ordering at the time. It tasted good though. :)), leisurely strolled through a bookstore, caught a movie, sipped on some smoothies, gazed at the sea lions relaxing on the beach, and toured Hearst Castle, this humongo house which actually had gold plated stars at the bottom of one of its swimming pools! Another very nice aspect was being able to wake up naturally, without an alarm clock or Kate trying to crawl into bed with me. I must say though, that the nicest part was being able to spend three days, just me and my best friend, having uninterrupted conversations, chatting, laughing, or saying nothing at all and being completely comfortable together. Chris, thank you for ten wonderful years together. Even when we are apart, you remain a huge presence in my life. I always feel that we are a team, working together for the good of our family. Thank you for the way you take care of me and for sharing your life with me. I love you!

So, back to Mother's Day. Obviously those 10 years brought along a few kiddos. I always love to see the cute cards and stuff that they come up with. On Saturday Aly and I went to a Mother/Daughter Tea with her activity days group. It was fun spending some time with her and finding out what she knew (and didn't know) about me. The girls had also gone to the beach to get their pictures taken and painted the picture frames. I LOVE this picture of Aly. She is turning into such a beautiful young lady and I especially love how it shows all her freckles!

Next, Analise made me this card at school.

( I think she really likes that I'm pregnant and I think she drew herself holding the baby in the picture.)

The girls also made me some cute cards in primary on Sunday and Chris made me a scrumptious dinner. It was a great mother's day.

April Sun Brings Family Fun

So it finally, finally, stopped raining here in "sunny" california, and we've been able to get out and do some stuff. We've been making the most of it with lots of family time and fun activities. For one of our family home evenings, Chris did the lesson on the liahona and Lehi's family getting directions from the Lord to make it to the promised land. Then he took us out geocaching with the GPS unit. It was a huge hit.

For a date night Chris and I went hiking at Point Lobos. We saw a lot of baby seals swimming around with their moms - so cool. Anyway, here's a picture of my belly - kind of. For some reason I've had at least 10 people tell me this month that I am either "waddling" or "really popping out there". I don't know if I really am a lot bigger earlier than in past pregnancies or if these people just aren't used to seeing the "basketball-underneath-someon'es-shirt" effect. I mean none of the people who commented have seen me pregnant before, so who are they to know, right?

Chris is doing well in his new quarter - the last one nearly did him in. Only two more quarters to go after this one - whoo, hoo! I think we're both getting ready for Chris to be done with school - between the two masters, he will have been in school for nearly 3 years by the time we are done. To strike a balance, Chris has rediscovered his love for running and loves taking long runs along the beach. He and Aly ran in a 3K race and had a ton of fun training for it together. Aly is a natural at running as well. They are planning on running in a 5K in a few weeks. Go Aly and Chris!

Aly continues to be our happy 2nd grader who always wants to be on the move: running, swimming, hiking, riding her scooter, and roller skating. She also loves activity days at church, hanging out with her friends, reading with mom, and has recently decided that she would like to finally answer the question, "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?" and write to the company and let them know. I think this was induced because she can no longer bite into tootsie pops because of her braces.

And Aly's quote of the day came on a very windy day while running with Chris: "Hey Dad, if it's a windy day and you hear 'help', look up." (Because they've been blown into a tree. Yes, the wind really did seem that strong.)

Lise is loving Kindergarten till the very end. She continues to come home with tons of amazing art projects (which unfortunately have ruined quite a few of her clothes) and we have made a star fish out of toilet paper rolls and a tamborine out of plastic plates for some of her special projects. Lise has quite the creative flair and is always creating masterpieces for the family.

On another note, Lise has been cracking me up lately. She's learning about time in school and when she brought home a paper that listed three things you do every night, one of them was "wait for dinner". Thanks, Lise. Other quotes from Lise include "my mashed potatoes look like somebody's brain", and "When is the Gravy gonna fall? I mean the Grease?" (Chris and I had been talking about the possible "collapse" of Greece at dinner time and other things going on in the news. It is always interesting to hear children's perspective on things. I don't know if she thought it was going to start raining gravy on us or what?) And finally, my personal favorite, was when Lise came home and told us that Mrs. Shugars had taught her how to give a hug with your eyes - you smile big at someone and then blink. Lise is all about hugs and just thought that was the coolest.

And then of course there's the Kater. Unfortunately Kate has gotten into this nasty habit of biting the dead skin off of her fingers and toes (she gets a lot of hangnails), which leads to a lot of sores and it's just plain gross. Any ideas for a remedy on that? She constantly needs something in her mouth. It's always been that way, but it seems to be getting worse at a time that it should be getting better. Do I have a nervous biter or what? She has also gotten into painting her own fingernails and toenails anytime she gets a hold of a marker (even though I try my best to keep them out of reach.) One time it was with a non-washeable marker and I ended up having to hairspray her hands to get the stuff off. Fun experience, let me tell ya.

On a brighter note, Kate has gotten a little more into the baby lately (thankfully she's stopped telling me that she's the new baby, although she is still going through a "I-can't-do-it-I-need-your-help" phase). She will tell me that the baby is swimming in my tummy and in my back, that when I put a shirt on I am "covering the baby's eyes", and she will come tickle my tummy to give the baby tickles. Cute stuff. Kate has also gotten into how I do her hair and her hairdo will determine what animal she is for the day: one ponytail in the middle - unicorn, two ponytails - puppy dog, two ponytails flipped - kitty cat. I must address her as such throughout the day or she will not acknowledge me. Kate has also taken it upon herself to be the prayer police and can be heard hissing, "close your eyes!" in the middle of the dinner prayer. Other quotes from Kate include, "That's cool, Lise", and my personal favorite was when she said "You're not my mom" to me at the grocery store and then promptly pointed to a 70 year old man and said, "You're my dad!" Does she think the grocery store is a parent swap or something? Maybe that guy had better stuff in his cart than me, who knows.

Well, those are the highlights of the past few weeks. The lowlights include getting the minivan fixed, having to replant the garden because of too much rain and rot, and finding out we're moving in December. I'm not terribly sad about the move itself, because we'll get to go straight to Florida and know we'll be there for at least 2-3 years, so we can kind of "settle" for a little bit. But I am bummed about moving the girls in the middle of the school year again, moving over Christmas, and doing it with a 5 month old (and three other kids). It is going to be a legistical nightmare. I'm praying for the inspiration and insight of how to accomplish this in the least stressful manner possible. If anyone has any tips or ideas that could help me, please let me know!