It's been a good week. We had a BBQ yesterday. We went garage-saleing (my word). It was good.

But the real highlight this week (for me at least) is my shop. Now that Summer is almost in full swing I have been putting a lot of time into setting this up, and it is really starting to take shape nicely. It is my man-cave/office/wood shop/shooting range/gym/climbing wall and I am enjoying the time I have spent there. One of these days I'll post pictures or something.

For lack of something else to write about, I am going to mention my lesson I taught in church today. For those who don't know, I am the ward mission leader, and as a part of this calling I have to get to have the opportunity of preparing a lesson for the gospel essentials class every week. Well, this week the lesson was on "Work and Personal Responsibility," which happens to be one of my favorite topics. See, I have known so many people who, if they would just embrace this one simple principal, would be able to totally transform their lives. And I love that the church sees this as one of the core values of the gospel. It is so...practical. I love it!

So here's my question: Why do so many people NOT GET IT? Why are there so many who refuse to ACT and take control of their own lives? Especially in my own generation (I'm sorry to say), why are there vast numbers of twenty-to-thirty-somethings who are still living at home and waiting for life to happen to them?

News flash- It's not going to! Nobody is going to come knocking on your door offering you the opportunity of a lifetime. Playing video games all day and counting your Facebook friends is not a substitute for real relationships with real people. And you aren't just going to wake up one morning with knowledge or skills that weren't there before. I'm sorry to break it to you, but it's just not gonna' happen. And the longer you sit there thinking that life is all rainbows and lollipops without any work or responsibility, the deeper the hole is going to be that you are one day going to have to dig yourself out of...because nobody else is going to do it for you.

So wake up already. Act like a grown up and take control! Especially you guys- I don't know why, and I hate to say it, but it seems that guys seem to have a harder time with this than women. Listen- It's time to man up, put on your big-boy pants, roll up your sleeves, and get to work! Seriously, your pathetic excuse for a life is really just your own stupidity, or laziness (or both), and it is not doing anyone, much less yourself, any favors. If not for your sakes, then do it for the sakes of your friends and families- ESPECIALLY if you are married. Your wives and children (present or future) deserve more.

Okay, I am now concealing my soapbox neatly back under my bed. I wasn't allowed to say that during my lesson at church, so I needed an outlet.

Have a good week!

What a week it's been!

As most of you know, Rachel was gone all last weekend at her Grandma's birthday party in Utah. She got back on Monday.

--Oh, that reminds me of a story that happened on Monday. I made a 13 year old girl cry. I know, you're probably thinking that since I'm a dentist I must do this all the time, which is only partially true, but this time I didn't even have to poke her with a sharp object or use any power tools in her mouth. (Actually, I have NEVER made a patient cry from pain- some have shed a tear in frustration, fear, or sticker-shock, but never pain...yet)

Anyway, here's the story. Rachel was supposed to get in around 3:00 on Monday afternoon. I had to be at work by 7:45 that day. So we called everyone we knew trying to find someone willing to take our kids, all to no avail. In the end we had to hire "Sara," a 13 year old babysitter, to take our kids for the entire morning. Sara was able to do it since she is homeschooled and sort of just lies around the house all day anyway.

So, Sara is supposed to show up at my house promptly at 7:15, allowing me to leave by 7:30. I wait and wait, and she never shows up. At 7:30 (the time I'm supposed to be leaving), I call her on the phone and she is IN BED! Her response- "Oh yea, let me see if I can find my mom to take me." I am incredulous. We had called her last night, less than 12 hours previously, to confirm our arrangements. I struggle to maintain my cool, and tell her to get back to me as soon as she can and let me know what is going on. I then call work and let them know that I'll be a little behind, but that I should make it by 8:00 to see my patients (I had 2 appointments scheduled at that time).

7:45 rolls around and I still haven't heard from her. I call her again. Her response: "Oh that's right, let me see if my mom is around."

That's when I lost it. I let her know that this wasn't just something she was doing for fun, that people were depending on her, and that we were paying her very well to be here and she needed to live up to what we had agreed on. We had confirmed with her the previous night, and here it is, more than a half hour past the time when she was supposed to BE here, and she is just barely thinking of finding her mom for a ride. This was ridiculous.

Well, she started crying and apologizing, and promised to be there as soon as possible. After I hung up, I felt a little bit bad for making her cry, but I was still steaming. I was already going to be late for work, and now I was going to be late for my patients as well, all because some 13 year old girl didn't know the meaning of the word "responsibility." She called me at 7:55 and told me she would be there in about 20 min. By this point I had no more words. I was afraid to open my mouth for fear that I would say something really bad- and then she might not come at all.

And then we called in a favor from our neighbor- our wonderful neighbor Debbie, who had expressly told us that she could not help us out that day because her extended family was in town and they already had plans. This was an emergency though. Debbie obligingly came over and watched our kids for the 20 minutes it took for the babysitter to get there and I ran out the door to make it to work. Of course I was late, but it worked out in the end.

Which brings me to a totally different topic that I want to address sometime in a different blog post. Homeschool. I can't help but think that the lack of real accountability to authority figures during Sara'seducation played a part this morning when she failed to recognize the importance of keeping her commitments. I'm not sure it is even possible, despite the best of intentions, to educate from the home. Acedemic learning, yes, but in my mind this is only one very small part of an education. But I'll get on that soapbox later.

During this entire episode Rachel was devistatingly sick.  While she was trying to coordinate babysitters she was lying on the floor of an airport, curled around Maren's car seat trying to keep from losing the contents of her stomach.  Luckily, she was healthy for the vacation weekend.  Other people were not so lucky...  She had a long day at the airport that included: holding up the line to reprint her ticket, spilling her fruit cup upon entering the plane, needing to feed Maren next to an unnaturally large man, falling asleep while feeding her and waking up to find herself less than covered, ordering sprite from an ornery flight attendant and spilling the entire content down her front and over Maren, and being completely ignored by the flight attendant for the remaining time on the flight.  Looking back it was a pretty humerous experience (Rachel said this, not me).


The rest of the week passed by in a blur. I worked Mon-Thurs, and had study club on Fri-Sat, so it was a very career-oriented week for me overall. Also, this week it became official that I will be opening my own office (under the Loftus Family Dental name) in Post Falls! I'm super excited about this and will be revisiting it in upcoming posts to give it the attention it deserves. As part of this move, I am also learning IV sedation which is going to open up a lot of opportunities for me to do some really cool dentistry. Oh- I also might become the primary investigator (head guy) of a practice-based research network of dentists throughout the Northwest. The research is all funded by a well-known implant company, and I would be publishing results in widely distributed dental journals. I sort of fell into this opportunity due to my interest and past experiance with research, and am excited because it could lead to more exposure for me in the capacity of being an "expert," which could lead to a number of further opportunities later on to push the envelope with what I am doing in my office. Anyway, all this stuff is something I will have to talk about later because it feels like this post is already getting long and I want to give adequate attention to it. Let's just say that things are going really well at work.

On our date night Rachel surprised me by taking me to the river to try out my new kayak. Let me say, the difference between a creek boat and this little spud boat is phenomenal- I've compared it to the difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle- the position and most of the movements are similar, but the balance and handling are totally different. I have some learning to do! Rachel had also braved Walmart while I was at work with all four kids so she could pick up her fishing licence.  She fished while I played in my new kayak, then I joined her on the shore. We had a great night.

Saturday was a crazy day. As I already stated, I was gone at study club during much of the day. Rachel, on the other hand, was busy wheeling and dealing here at home. In the short time it took to place a single implant at study club, Rachel managed to sell my motorcycle (so sad), buy a raft (exciting) complete with outboard motor (cool), and pick up another motorcycle for me to work on. Also, the kids had a bake sale and made almost $20 by selling baked goods for .25 a piece! The kids baked all of the goodies with Rachel and they made a fun bake sale sign. I think our kids may have a future in business. Later that day, I took the remaining proceeds from my motorcycle and purchased a drill press, a router/router table, a grinder, and a belt/disc sander for my shop.

But wait, there's more! That night we had a big party at our house. We had about 25 people over for BBQ ribs, roasted hot dogs, and s'mores in our back yard. Again, our yard performed beautifully, from the horseshoe pits that I built to the "shooting range" in the shop, to the wide open space for frisbee and playground equipment for the kids. I love this house.

You know- I was talking with my Grandma this week and she asked how we were doing. I thought about it for a while, and then I told her that, in all seriousness, we were living the dream. Things were going almost too well for us up here in our beautiful little corner of Idaho, and we were just enjoying life to the fullest. And it's true.

...Sort of scary isn't it :]

So, you can't see it, but Jackson is reaching into our butterfly cage. We raised some caterpillars and watched them make cacoons, and then we got to watch the butterflies coming out. We feed them with sugar water, and it has been a fun experiance for both us and the kids. Now, we just need to let them go before they all die.

Here's Evelyn getting stuff ready for the bake sale.

And here's the sign they all made.

This was at our BBQ. Sis. Iglezia is a missionary from Brazil who had never had a s'more. Also we had exchange students from Japan, a neighbor family, some friends from our last ward, some friends from playgroup, and some friends from church.

Rachel, teaching Jackson the joy of marshmallows

...and the joy of eating them

Us with some friends

Our kids, racing. I think Jackson won. The little car is one of the things they chose to buy with their bake sale money.

Jackson in the tent that he got with some of his money.

Here's my new motorcycle. It's a 1966 Yamaha 125cc two-stroke. This is a pretty sweet bike! Not big, not fast, but classic.

Well, I guess I need to get back in the habit of doing this blog every Sunday. I've been doing it faithfully for almost 6 years now, and I guess after establishing that kind of momentum you just can't stop. Still...I have to say that I've enjoyed the extra free time on Sunday afternoons during this past month or so.

So, obviously today is Mother's day. What did we do? Nothing. Nada. Zip. You see, there were no mothers around. I'm not sure, but this may be the first Mother's day in my life where nobody on "my bench" at church received flowers. Of course we made some phone calls, but really, the day was about the same as almost every other Sunday.

Except for the obvious and ever-present absence of a Mother.

Rachel is in St. George, Utah. She flew down there on Friday to be a part of a surprise birthday party for her grandma and to see some of her extended family. From phone calls it sounds like she is having a great time, but I am going to have to let her tell that story. As for me, it has been a fun-filled Daddy weekend with the kids. We went to the park, we visited the library, we played in the back yard, we did projects around the house, we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, we watched movies and ate pizza, we made messes and cleaned them up, we went on a pretty drive, and we bought a new kayak! It was a good weekend.

Oh- and I have to say that I love my job! That's all.

Here are some pictures of my new boat. Specs: Boat=Jackson Star. Length=5'6". Weight=28lbs. Awesome! Oh- and forgive the pictures- I was having too much fun playing with my photo editing software.

For those who know me, you know that I love kayaking! And for those who know me well, you know that it has been a while since I was able to do so regularly. The reasons for this are varied, but mostly boil down to the fact that other priorities in my life right now make big trips very difficult to do very often. Then we moved to the perfect little town of Post Falls, ID. We live 5 minutes (or less) from two kayaking playspots that have long been destination spots for serious playboaters and rodeo competitions (not with horses- although we have lots of those too). A part of the popularity of these playspots is their easy access, and the fact that they are both PERFECTwaves/holes in an otherwise VERY calm part of the river (like, you could paddle or swim upstream with very little effort).

What this means for me? Well, first of all, I will be spending a lot of time with my new boat. I can litterally go out for a play session in the morning, come home for a quick shower, and still make it to work by 8. I think I'll be doing a lot of this. Also, flat water can now be fun to kayak in, so I'll be bringing it to the beach when we go as a family. Second of all, this is made even easier by the fact that the boat fits in the back seat of my car. No rack, truck bed, or trailer required. Just my little Prizm. Third, my creek boat has been relegated to the rafters in the garage. I will always have it around for those big trips, but I don't think I'll be getting much more use out of it. And fourth-- I need/get to learn how to do this freestyle business! I'm excited!

Weeee're Back! For the last month we have had nothing except a Kindle Fire to use between both of us.  It has been a tragic few months for computers at the Hazard home.  First, mine became completely infected with viruses and has since refused to boot up.  Then, Logan's computer cord was mangled.  The reason?  I will give you three chances to figure that one out...  His computer is so old and has been running so completely slow that we didn't necessarily want to buy another expensive charger for it.  We have been in limbo with that decision for about a month (definitely not like us), but we finally buckled down and bought a new cord.

I must say that I made a valient effort to blog.  Here is the scenario that was repeated at least four times... On a quiet night at some ridiculous hour I was feeding Maren, juggling the Kindle Fire, and trying to type something comprehensible on the touch screen. Now fast forward some crazy amount of time (for the short blog that was finally finished) to the moment when I hit 'publish post.' Then my stomach would drop as I looked at the refreshed screen only to find a blank blog window.

I tried...

Maren's Blessing
We blessed our sweet baby girl on Easter Sunday.  We traveled down to Rexburg to Logan's family's house.  This was a perfect place to bless her because my family was able to drive up and be there as well.  There were a few people on both sides that were not able to come, but almost everyone made it!  Hooray! We blessed her in the Hazard home instead of at church.  We did this previously with Adalie and Jackson's blessings and I like it so much better!

Easter was so much fun.  Having kids makes holidays magical. We are still in the process of creating personal family traditions.  (I know, I know, we have been married for 7 years!)  Anyway. I think we found the perfect tradition.  We will hide all of the dyed Easter eggs along with each child's pre determined Easter basket.

Craziness at home
Home life has actually been a little bit rough this month.  All three of the older kids seem to be testing boundaries.  Why do they feel the need to do this all at the same time?  Maybe it is because they are ridiculously close in age... Anyway.  Adalie and Jack have taken to telling me 'no' all day long, and I have taken to putting them in time outs... all day long.  Neither one of these are very effective.  Each of them are also testing limits and refusing to listen. Evelyn has become quite the little boss trying to lecture and dole out punishments to her younger siblings.  Most of the day is great with little episodes, but I have dubbed the hour of five o'clock as meltdown mania.  This is true for all three older kids and one harried mother.

Fun story
Jackson heard our neighbor Debbie calling to her dog saying, "Stop Dora!" Now, whenever he hears a dog bark he runs to the window and yells, "Stop Dora!" The other day the kids and I were having a picnic when the dogs started barking.  Jack proceeded to chastise them when Evelyn piped up and said with an air of authority, "No Jack, her name is Nora not Dora."  Jack promptly switched his command to, "Stop Nora."  I then informed Evelyn that the dog was actually named Dora.  Without missing a beat she picked up that authoritative air and said matter of factly, "No Jack, her name is Dora not Nora!" Jack switched back without batting an eye.

Last week at the Apogee Conference
Last week Logan boarded a plane on Wednesday afternoon and came home late Saturday night. These 4 days changed his life forever...

Dr Loftus, the doctor Logan is working with, took the entire dental team (17 people) to Phoenix for an amazing, edge of your seat, emotianally charged business conference. The Apogee dental network is a group of the highest acheiving dentists from around the country who get together and share business ideas with one another to help their practices grow. I know it sounds dull, but Logan came back very excited about it, and had some really good ideas while he was down there that will have a profound effect on our entire family. Also, it was during this conference that Dr. Loftus announced that he would be opening a second practice by the end of summer, probably located in Post Falls, and that Logan would be the doctor responsible for running it. He is very excited about this opportunity and is looking forward to opening a new practice in the near future. 

This week
This week Logan and I somehow managed to have three dates!  This was a wonderful thing after being without Logan for most of last week. On Monday Debbie offered to stay with the kids during naptime so that Logan and I could go on a date.  She knew that we hadn't seen each other for a while. We went to thrift stores and had a great time together.  On Wednesday we had our weekly date together. We also went out for our anniversary yesterday. This day deserves its own section.

Our Anniversary
On Saturday morning we packed the kids up and went for a leisurely drive through the town looking for garage sales.  Both of us enjoy a good yard sale.

In the afternoon I took Evelyn on a mommy date.  We made reservations in advance for a Fancy Nancy tea party held at our very own library.  Our library seriously goes all out for the kids events!  We entered a very fancy room that had been decorated very cute.  There was a program with a harpist and dancers from a local dance studio.  There was also a cute skit about etiquette that taught the girls simple french phrases. Each of the girls then had the chance to walk down the promenade with Miss Mogan as the MC making introductions. The fancy librarians then served us tea and an assortment of goodies. At the end each girl was given a 'credit card' to purchase face painting, a posed picture, pinki nail art, and some cute items from a fancy boutique.  We had a blast and neither of us will forget this fun outing.

That evening the kids were being crazy!  Our neighbor, Debbie, found out that it was our anniversary and offered to take the kids for the night so that we could go out!  This was the second time this week that she babysat for our crazy bunch!  THANK YOU DEBBIE!  I am so glad that we have such sweet neighbors. On this date we went to Mallards Restaurant and ate a great dinner with a fabulous view of the river. We just enjoy each others company.

These last seven years have been amazing. It seems like every year brings bigger and bigger changes for our family.  Life just gets better and better!  On our first Valenties Day as a married couple we decided what our idyllic town would be.  We both agreed that a small town nestled in the mountains about fifteen minutes away from a bigger town would be perfect.  It was at that time that we gave up that dream because we thought only expensive resort towns would fit the bill.  Well.  Here we are in Post Falls Idaho- a small town nestled between beautiful mountains only fifteen minutes away from a larger town.  We also have four amazing chidren. We are living the dream.  



We had a blast at the tea party.  We had a fun time getting ready together. We painted each other's toenails and Evelyn got to wear a little bit of blush and light eyeshadow. It was a party that neither of us wil soon forget.





Our caterpillars doubled in size the first day and just kept growing!  Then they all hung upside down from the top at exactly the same time and began to secrete hardening stuff to form their crystalis'.  Whenever they are bumped they start shaking wildly from side to side in order to scare off predators.  These things are pretty cool... I think the kids even like them too.

Side note- the pineapple will be for breakfast tomorrow?  Have you ever promised something to one of your children and then completely forgotten and felt like an idiot?  Well, I promised Evelyn that we would eat pineapple when she woke up for her nap. She reminded me right before dinner time, so I promised to cut it up for dinner.  As evidenced by the picture that didn't happen either. It will not be forgotton tomorrow!




Evelyn's drawing skills are improving.  I love to see what she comes up with.

 



This is his picture face!  It is SO hard to get Jack to sit still for a minute and even harder still to get him to smile long enough for a picture. Whatever the case, he sure loves his little sister!  He dotes on her all the time.

 




I had to put these pictures in because they are almost carbon copy of pictures we have of Evelyn.  I FINALLY have two kids that look remotely like siblings!

 

 

These kids never stop moving!  This was an amazing once in a lifetime occurance. Very cute and cuddly.






We had an excellent conference weekend.  You might wonder how this is possible when we have four very young children.  Well, we locked Adalie and Jackson in the playroom. At least it wasn't the closet under the stairs.  I must add that all we heard from downstairs were constant giggles.  Logan, Evelyn, and I played conference bingo for all of the sessions. I was very impressed with her ability to listen for so long and to pay attention to the words enough to pose as a competitive threat to Logan and me.  The skittles and m&m's didn't last through the four sessions, so we decided to use the plethora of altoid mints that we bought this weekend. This brings me to the next activity this week...

This week Logan has been getting his fishing gear set up. He created the perfect mini tackle box for any occasion.  It even passed for being great for a backpacking trip.  He bought mini altoid tins and a large altoid tin specifically for storing different kinds of bait. The altoids went to great use as bingo markers.

Logan has been working in his shop like a demon this week.  He created space to hang all of our yard equipment, he brought his workbench and miter saw out, he organized his tools, and he hung his hangboard about fifteen feet high so that he had to begin his workout by mantling up to it.  He also has been working to create our garden masterpiece.  We have a space behind the shop that is about 12' by 25' that we are using to create a little garden sanctuary.  He set up a fence (first things first so that this little garden is not ruined by fun loving hands), dug out the space, and created a path out of river rocks.

I am excited to get out there and work with him.  The weather wasn't cooperative, but I am sure we will have many future weekends with kids running around in the yard while we get dirty!  We have many plans for our backyard this summer.  Let the fun begin! 

That pretty much sums up our week.  I have a few minutes, so if you are interested you may read on to hear some cute stories about what each of our kids are up to.

Evelyn
Logan and I take turns reading The Magic Tree House book series to Evelyn.  These are perfect books to read aloud!  The books are also enticing Logan and me to take trips to places like Africa and the South American rain forest.  Every week I have a day that is just set aside as a mommy day.  I spend time with each of the kids individually, and we spend time all together.  We have no other plans on this day.  Anyway. This week we built a time machine out of the box for our lawn mower.  We had a great time and have since visited many of the Magic Tree House destinations.

Evelyn and I are both planners.  Every morning when we are eating breakfast she will look up at me and ask, "What's the plan Mom."  Then, I will proceed to outline the plan from that point on until Papa comes home (I am a planner and I generally have one. :)  If I shortchange her and don't tell her the whole day she will say, "No Mom, I mean the whole plan!"  I also like this because it makes me think about the day and figure out what outing we will do, when I will take time with the kids, and when they will play on their own.  These things together make for a well balanced day.  This is also helpful because often I will include cleaning together before we do a fun activity.  I think the kids clean better when they know ahead of time that they will be cleaning.  I also think it is helpful to have something fun planned afterwards.

Adalie
Adalie can melt my heart in a second, or she can threaten me with early gray hairs!  I have been having a difficult time getting Adalie and Jackson to actually nap now that they are in toddler beds.  On Monday I put them into bed and explained that it was time to go to sleep and not time to play.  We talked about it for a while and Adalie had the perfect face of innocence as she politely agreed that she would not get up to play.  I shut the door and didn't even take a step before I heard her cheery little voice exclaim, "Let's Play!" 

Adalie is my cuddler.  She will cuddle for hours if you let her!  Sometimes she brings me her blanket and asks to lay on my shoulder.  She also loves to be rocked while you sing Rock a Bye Baby (who came up with that horrible song???).  Adalie has decided that she can read.  She will open a book and start turning the pages while she sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 

Jackson
On Tuesday I was sitting on the couch feeding Maren while the kids were all running around playing together.  Jackson kept running over to me and saying, "kiss," then giving me a quick kiss before running off like a wild man to his next new adventure.  What a sweet kid!  He will also randomly walk up to Maren and rub her head, or bend down and give her a kiss.

Jackson is by far the most interested in his little sister.  He constantly wants to hold her, kiss her, rub her head, and take care of her.  I love watching the relationships form between all of my kids.  What a joy.

Jack can also be the grumpiest one.  I can definitely tell if he hasn't had enough milk.  I swear this boy runs off of milk!  He can out drink (and out eat) Evelyn and Adalie.  I don't know where he puts all of the food and all of the milk!  He is generally the last one at the table and he eats more than the other two combined (and all three are good eaters!). 

Maren
Maren fits right in with our family.  She is such a sweet tempered little girl!  She is very content and she is giving us more and more of her sweet smiles, and she is quite the little talker lately.

Maren looks just like Evelyn did at this age!  I also think that they will have the same color hair.  Maren has many of Evelyn's features, but her chin looks just like Adalie's.  Also, when she sleeps she looks just like Jackson did at her age.  Crazy.  She seems to be a good mix of all three of them.  This is a good thing since the three of them don't even look like siblings!

Maren is addicted to the sound of rain. We have a white noise maker with 8 different sounds, but rain is the only one that she will accept.  The other day I was trying to put her to sleep without it.  I held her, I swadled her, I gave her a paci, and I did everything else I could think of.  I finally gave up and turned on the rain maker.  She stopped crying immediately, yawned, and closed her eyes (this took about 20 seconds).  She was asleep in less than a minute.

All of the kids
Adalie and Jackson have been tornado terrors this week!  In two days they have emptied my sewing stuff, strewn my ribbons around the house, tried on my mascara, gotten into Logan's fishing box, played in the sink in the bathroom numerous times, written in crayon on the windows, written in crayon on the table (a seperate time), spread frozen corn and peas across the upstairs, spread handsoap in her hair twice (Adalie), poured cereal on the table, spread water all over the kitchen, and emptied their dresser drawers numerous times.  Those are the incidents that I can remember.  Remember- all this in TWO DAYS. Sometimes I want to admit myself into a mental institution.

I have been wondering about who would go on the potty first.  About three weeks ago Adalie went in and went potty!  We had a little potty celebration for her and Jackson decided he wanted to try. Not to be oudone by his sister, he sat down and went potty! I can definitely take advantage of this sibling competition.

Evelyn, Adalie, and Jackson are known by people in nursery and people in playgroup as the 'book kids.'  All three of them are magnetically drawn to books and will sit in a little huddle together around a pile of books for a long time.  The weather has finally been nice enough to play outside.  I noticed it was particularly quiet out there so I peeked out the window to check it out.  All three kids were sitting on the firepit hearth reading books!  I am pretty proud of them.

Evelyn, Jack and Addy are very good at taking care of Maren.  Sometimes I will come to get her when she is crying only to find that the three kids are huddled around her with her rain machine and her pacifier.  I have all three kids cover her with his/her special blanket (the ones that they can't sleep without).  I love my kids!

Wow. I kind of rambled on for a long time. I am impressed if you made it this far and didn't just skip to the pictures. All that reading and you only get two pictures. Here they are:

 The first of many...

Evelyn really wanted me to take a picture of her and her sister.

It was the first week of Spring and I am loving it! I didn't get this post up yesterday because we were busy walking to the park and having a BBQ picnic- I'd say it was worth it! Let the season of fun begin!

This week was our Evelyn week. We FINALLY decided to celebrate her birthday (2-19) with a party for her and her friends. We had one planned for the actual week of her birthday, but then Maren was born, and then my parents were here, and then Rachel's mom was here.... Well, the big day finally came, and what a day it was!

Rachel went all out for this. The theme was farytales, and she had it all figured out, from the decorations to the games to the cake. Evelyn had five of her good friends over and they started out by making crowns which were labled with their fairytale name (Sir Jack, Lady Evelyn, etc.) This was a huge improvement over silly party hats and helped to set the stage for everything else. It was a good party and everybody had fun.

One of the funny/tragic moments of the party happened with the pinata. After the kids poked around for a while it became obvious that we were going to be there all day if things continued as they were. That's when I stepped up to bat. Well, I must have overestimated the strength of our little pinata (as well as the kids hitting it), because one good solid wack totally obliterated it. Like, seriously, there was nothing left of that poor pinata. Also, the blow was hard enough that it split open most of the boxes of Nerds candies that were inside of it, so when it broke there was a litteral explosion of Nerds. It was cool. The kids went running and started picking up candy like their lives depended on it (there were other things besides Nerds).

Except for Jack. Jack wanted the Nerds. So he found a Nerds box and slowly started picking the little candies off the floor, one by one. It took him a while, but finally he had filled up most of his box. He was obvioiusly very proud of his accomplishment and very happy to have a whole box of Nerds to himself. He ran over to Rachel to show her, saying "Look, look." Just when Rachel looked, however, tragedy struck. The bottom fell out of the box and all the candies went rolling accross the floor. He was crestfallen...but only for a minute. Thankfully, Jackson is only 2 and has a short attention span. Rachel acted quickly by pointing out some Hershey's Kisses for him to go after. I think the Nerds were totally forgotten by the time he was about half way to the Kisses. We swept up the Nerds, and everyone was happy.

...Including a very chocolate-covered Jackson.

Another funny moment during the party was during the game "pin the fire on the dragon." (Obviously a spin-off of the donkey game, but more fairy-tailish). Well, when it was Evelyn's turn, she removed her blindfold only to see that she had put the fire right on top of the dragon's head. She suddenly became very distressed and started saying "Get it off! Get it off! It is going to burn the nice dragon!" Rachel and I were too busy laughing to do much about the unfortunate dragon, so Evelyn decided to take action and remove the offending flame herself. Whew! Disaster averted...barely.

After all of Evelyn's friends went home we hurried and cleaned everything up and got ready for the next party that we were to have... that night! We had invited some friends and a couple of Japanese exchange students over for a BBQ and camp-fire in our back yard. This was also a lot of fun and I think everyone had a good time. We did steaks on the grill and roasted hot dogs and s'mores over the fire. One of the big highlights was the makeshift shooting range I had set up in the shop for use with my air pistols. I know- it sound a little adolescent. Well- we had teenagers there, as well as Japanese students who had never been allowed to even touch anything resembling a real weapon (by law), and it became the feature of the night. After it got dark we sat around the fire for a long time until they had to go. It was a success, and I think it was only the first of many, many backyard gatherings we will have this summer.

Here's Evelyn, ready for the big event!

Evelyn and Rachel spent a long time getting ready for this party. Here, Evelyn proudly displays the ill-fated pinata that she decorated.

Our house was filled with royalty.

The cake. Evelyn and Rachel had fun decorating this. I think it was very impressive.

Rachel made little booklets of "The Paper Bag Princess" to include with each of the kid's party-favor bags.

Lady Evelyn

Lady Adalie.

Me and Maren, before we whacked the snot out of Evelyn's pinata.

The back-yard campfire party.

It's been another good week for us, which is saying something since this was the first week since Maren was born that we didn't have family staying with us the whole time. I know, it's crazy. Maren is over 5 weeks old, and we are just barely weaning ourselves off the constant help from others. We have been spoiled.

So, how did we do? Well, thanks to Rachel's Super-Jedi-Knight-Power-Rangers-Xena-Warrior-Princess-Mothering Skills, we did Great! Really, there isn't a whole lot more to say. Life is fun. We are just living it and loving it. We love the spring time. My job is going better than anybody ever could have hoped it would. Rachel is able to get out of the house frequently to be social and stuff. We have really good kids who *mostly* listen to what we say. Our cars still run (knock on wood). Oh- and our microwave finally got fixed.

We're happy.

...And we now know once and for all how reliant we are on the microwave.

Our activity of the week was going to the annual Sportsman's Expo in Spokane! This was cool. It was this giant gathering of red necks who were all decked out in camoflauge talking about guns and antlers and stuff. There was constant bugling and quacking from the vendors selling their game calls. There were live bears. There were lots of booths with hunting and fishing videos showing. There were demonstrations. There were men (and women) who still smelled like the animals they hunted (you know what that means, right?). This was an awesome place, and there were litterally hundreds upon hundreds of people who showed up for the event. Matt, you should have been there.

And then there was us, with our Cadillac of a stroller which comfortably seats all four of our children, slowly making our way through it all. Man, it was great! The best part was listening to people comment about us in hushed voices that weren't quite hushed enough. Some people, however, don't even try to be discrete. One woman pointed her finger right at us, and bellowed in a loud voice "Look! They have four of those things!  We have six, but we have four adults." By "those things" I'm not sure if she was referring to us, our children, or our stroller, but either way I love this!

I've said it before, and I'll say it over and over again...I love my life!

Here's Rachel. The kids thought this wall was the coolest thing.

Here's me and Addy looking at the live bears.