Happy Spring Moments

1. Ben had his first T-Ball practice tonight. It was stressful for us all until about 20 minutes passed. See, the deadline for coach-pitch is two months before Ben's birthday. So, all the kids in his 1st grade class are playing Coach-Pitch while he is still in T-Ball. He was not so happy about that. But, after promising him some ice cream (after the girls went to bed) he stumbled onto the field. Once they started running the bases he was happy and involved. He is also thrilled that a friend from the Little Theatre Troupe is also on his team! (((I don't think the coach is going to be so happy about this as they are quite the trouble-makers together.))) They are the Phillies and are wearing WHITE baseball pants. I happily welcome any suggestions for laundry, as the budget doesn't allow for me to buy him a new pair for each game.

2. Annie has the most faithful prayers. It seems that they always come true, even when I am a bit skeptical. You see, last night Annie said the dinner prayer and asked for the flowers to start blooming. What do you know, during breakfast we noticed that our backyard is full of color! EVERYTHING started blooming today. An entire bush is covered with pink when it was allllll green yesterday. However, she keeps praying for Summer to come quickly, and I don't want that. We are so enjoying Spring!

3. I looked at the calendar today and Andy's first final is in three short weeks!!! Can't wait for the semester to be done; just four more to go! Time has FLOWN!!! And my children have gotten to be so big and so FUN. Seriously, the amount of enjoyment continues to rise each day, even with little Stinker-pot in the bunch!

4. Russell Stover chocolate eggs are my new favorite Easter candy; I think I like them even more than Cadbury eggs. Can't believe I just said that! They are just fabulous. I've only had one so far today and my daily limit is two. I think I need to run upstairs and get one more...have to make sure it is milk chocolate instead of dark though!

5. My last reflection of the day is that when I mop the kitchen floor at night, it stays clean about 18 times longer than when I do it during the day. I think that will be my new evening chore instead of a daytime chore.

6. We've implemented a new regime in our house. Kids stay in bed until 7am and then can come into our room to read scriptures. It's worked well for 3 days (because they are excited to read with us); we'll see how long it lasts. Ben has been waking up around 5:30 and constantly gets up to look at the clock until 7, but he's trying to be quiet and hasn't woken up the girls! It's made me happier, so that should count for something! And it makes our bedtime routine shorter, so that makes me happier too!

Temper Lost

This morning was not a happy place for a good five minutes while I turned into Mean Mom. While the kids started to clean up the many messes that quickly appeared in my house, I came downstairs to check email and take a little time out. They came down after cleaning up the tasks I had left them and walked over to me. Emily hugged on my leg, Ben leaned into my side and Annie stood right in front of me. I said I was sorry for losing my temper. They all IMMEDIATELY said, "It's okay, Mom!" and gave me kisses. I said it wasn't okay because I am trying to teach them to stay in control of their voices (which they have done FABULOUS with this week), but then I lost it!

We went on to another conversation, when Annie got a confused look on her face. She wanted to know what it meant to lose your temper. I said that I got very angry very fast. Ben explained it best, "Losing your temper is when you run out of patience!" Well said, Benny! I guess I need to go back to praying for more patience, which I seemed to have a plethora of this afternoon and evening. I need to learn to spread that throughout the day!

The Barrister's Ball

Next week is the Law School Ball. During this event, they have 6 different categories to vote for different student recognitions like "Most ________."

Andy is on the ballot 3 times.

Best Dressed
Most Likely to Volunteer in Class
Most Likely to Change the World (with 4 other very liberal people) hehehe

That's my boy!!! And he scored a goal tonight in our soccer game, with a beautiful assist from...ME!!!

I want to go to this Ball; I think it would be fun! He doesn't want to pay for the tickets or have to dance! Come on!!! Our 10th anniversary is in a few weeks......too bad that is during finals!

Chocolate!!!!

All growing up, anytime my grandparents came to visit, they would bring chocolates to our house. They were divine chocolates, with the most incredible vanilla center and a fabulous rich milk chocolate coating. (Some had dark chocolate, but my sister and I would peel off that yucky bitter dark stuff and just eat the yummy centers...hmm) As I grew older, I learned much better when was a good time to sneak these from the fridge. And, I LOVED as the other kids got older and left the house=more chocolates for me!!! I learned these fabulous pieces of Heaven were called Fannie Mays, made in Chicago with a store in Florida.

Well, there is a chocolate factory less than 7 minutes from our house...that does tours. We signed up and went today to see how Harry London chocolates are made...and how FANNIE MAYS are made!!! They are now under the same parent company, and both goodies are created in this heavenly store. The smell when you walk in the doors is overwhelmingly sweet. Wow...it was yummy. The tour itself was okay - not as fun as others we've been too but incredibly informative at the same time. I was surprised that so many people work on the assembly lines to create the chocolates! We walked out with some goodies to try at home and a special little treat to send my brother-in-law. The test will be if he actually eats them or is too bitter to enjoy them. hehehe...

Fabulous time, followed by an afternoon of outside playing! Now the kids are attempting to 'camp' downstairs in sleeping bags. The attempt comes from my little mischief-maker bothering her two older siblings. Time to take her back up to her bed. Let me know if you can hear her wails from where you are!!!

Visiting Kirtland

Well, Kirtland is one of the towns that the Latter-Day Saints settled before moving west to Utah. A temple was built there, Joseph Smith lived there, and much Church history and restoration occurred during the time the Saints lived there. As it is just over an hour away, we decided to visit while Ben was on Spring Break. It was really cool. My favorite part was looking at the little creek running through the town and listening as our guides (Senior Missionaries) told of building a dam so there was enough water for baptisms by immersion, just as Jesus was baptized. I also loved the Newell K. Whitney store. Joseph and his wife Emma lived there for a time. Upstairs is the very table Joseph sat at when he received the revelation of the Word of Wisdom, which is a code of health that we believe in. Incredibly strong spirit in this space! In the next room was the School of the Prophets, where men were taught before they served missions - the first MTC!

These were our sweet tour guides, the Pedersons from Oregon. They are serving an 18 month couple mission in Kirtland. They were the MOST PATIENT tour guides, especially with our five little kiddos who did fabulous among all the antiques they were to look at and not touch.

Our sweet friends; Gracie didn't want to be in the picture!

Then we drove a few miles down the road to see the quarry site where the stone was cut for the Kirtland Temple. The temple is now owned by the Reorganized LDS church (they have a new name, but I can't remember it). Tours are available, but we were out of time!

Gracie saw all the other kids with walking sticks and wanted her own; Ben and Emily obliged and each found her one.

Annie waiting patiently for us old ladies to catch up!

This was a very fun day trip! We can't wait to take Andy in the summer or when he has a Saturday available!

Food Activities

I've mentioned before that Emily is a food thief. She is quite the naughty little munchkin! Alas, I could not find her one evening when it was time for something, so I went looking and found her hiding behind the door in the playroom...with green hands. Hummmm. Emily...what have you been eating? Yes, that would be a lick-a-stick from up high in the kitchen cupboards! How she got to it without me hearing or noticing, I have no idea! She didn't leave any evidence in the kitchen either...sneaky! Grandma and Grandpa sent an egg coloring kit, so we have fun last weekend coloring eggs. It went way too fast, but they had a blast! And my sweet husband made me a beautiful scene complete with tulips!

She loves to be on the table and doesn't like wearing pants or shoes....such a sweet girl!

Annie really got into it! Fun fun activity!!!

Emily's Birthday Party

She is three and finally had her first birthday party! She was soooo excited! She'd gone the day before to her first party, so she knew exactly what was going to happen! We played a game with skittles, matching the colors and then counting how many of each color.

We played a dancing game. When the music stopped, you had to stand on a color. If I picked your color, then everyone would clap and cheer for you! Emily won this time!

Somehow I missed the pictures of making Fruit Loop necklaces. It was a rainbow party, if you can't tell. Everything had to do with colors. I love little Nora's face in this picture. Emily got slap bracelets to decorate; you can just imagine the fun she (and Ben and Annie) have had with those!

Then we had an egg hunt with each child finding a different color of eggs.

Emily found one of Tyler's! Ben and Annie were great helpers. We also hid some special purple eggs for them for being such fabulous helpers, especially with the prepwork!

Look what I found!!! Happy Happy Birthday Emily; Cherish these memories because they won't happen again for another 2 years!!!

***And, yes, Ben woke up telling me what games he wanted to play at his birthday party...in August!!!***

Little Emily

Such a joy she has been to our family the last 3 years! She and Ben have always been buddies, though this last year she and Annie have had so much fun too! This was our first meeting when Em was a few hours old! Happy 1st birthday!!!

Happy 2nd birthday!!!

Happy 3rd birthday! We are doing her birthday party and cake this weekend, so on her birthday we decorated with streamers and Emily picked her dinner. She wanted pancakes with special syrup. (we have Dad syrup - from a plastic container that is just 'fake,' Mom's syrup that I make and grew up with that is served hot, and special syrup made with butter, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla, cinnamon, etc that is foamy and just delicious poured over berries and cream.)

We turned them into Princess Pancakes just for her birthday!

She ate every single bite that was on her plate!!!

She was very focused on opening each present. Ben and Annie did a GREAT job of LETTING her open packages!

Yippee!!! The book she is holding is one we had to purchase from the library since Emily tore 1/2 the pages out. Now it is her very own! She's had a fabulous time playing with her presents and is very excited for her upcoming party!

These are the things our family has to say about Emily:

Ben - Emily is nice and likes to have a fun time.

Annie - I like when Emily tackles me and when she pretends I'm a boat.

Dad - I love when Emily kicks her feet up and down while she dances and the accompanying giggles.

Mom - I love that Emily loves to join in. She doesn't care what the activity is, she just wants to be a part of our family! I also love when she kisses our owies.

A Much-Used Gift

We had some friends in Austin that we loves to play games with. We'd take Ben over, put him to bed in their pack-n-play and play games. Each night, Matt would make his most famous hot-air popped popcorn. We LOVED it! It was the perfect treat while we played. So, I found a hot-air popper at a garage sale, but it just did not do justice to those little kernels. We found it was much easier to just use the microwave rather than picking up all the kernels that flew around the kitchen! However, Andy made several comments over the past few years about how yummy popcorn is when made on the stove. Last September, I saw this little baby at Target. That was it! His Christmas gift from the kids. We tried it out...

Emily checking the kernels... We were all so anxious just waiting...and greatly missing our gas stove!

Waiting...

Taking turns turning the handle...

The finished product! I must admit, this was the BEST popcorn I have ever had! The kernels were ALL popped, everything tasted light and fluffy! We've learned a few things over the many times we've made popcorn in the last few months.

1. Put the salt in with the oil to evenly coat the popcorn. It's much better than trying to add it after the popping has been completed.

2. Canola oil makes much better popcorn than the expensive name-brand oil that they sell next to kernels; don't waste your money! That oil takes too long to heat up, the kernels don't grow huge, and the taste is almost burnt!

3. Make a lot!!! It's very yummy!

4. FABULOUS Christmas gift for Andy. It's been the most used of anything I've ever given him, even though I felt so frivolous buying something that wasn't a necessity. I think in the long run it has saved us money because we'd rather stay home and eat our yummy popcorn than going to a movie and buying theirs!

5. If you want to come for a game night/afternoon and enjoy some popcorn, just let us know and we'll arrange a date. It's even portable!

Freezer Meals

I have greatly missed my freezer meal group from Dallas. It has been semi-fun to cook most nights, but I've really missed just pulling something out in the morning and sticking it in the crock pot without having to put much effort into the planning. So, a few of the law school wives and I made a few meals. While we cooked, the children played (I mean dumped) with the toys!!! They had a great time! Five little kiddos, 3 1/2 hours, and ZERO fights!!! Then we saw the playroom and spent another hour cleaning the toys. It was all back to perfect before Andy got home that night because we knew where everything went. (He spent Christmas break organizing the playroom and labeling tubs; LOVE IT!!! A few friends keep asking to borrow him, but he's not done organizing me yet!) We still had snow and since I didn't have a cooler set out, I just put my meals on the snow until we were down with everything, then took them downstairs to the freezer! It was great and I didn't worry about food spoiling!!!

Thanks Ladies! Let me know when it's time to do it again!!!!

The Mish-Mash of Pictures

Lots of randomness, which is my favorite part! One day we watched some cute little friends, and got to keep 6 week old Ruby as well. As you can tell, my girls were ENTRANCED with her beauty! She and Annie kept up a conversation for a good ten minutes! Annie really wants to learn to ice skate. She's been practicing with whatever she can find!

One, two, three bums in a tub!

Not quite sure what she is thinking, but she's very beautiful!

One of the rare moments when all three cuties are still and somewhat clean!!!

Each day we have quiet time after lunch, which is normally TV time for kids and book/sleep time for mom! Emily wanted to lay down, and Annie happily obliged. Emily has started to turn to Annie for comfort when mom is being 'mean.'

How to Catch a Leprechaun

By BEN MAAS

My family and I can't catch a leprechaun. It's in an ancient castle. We get a flashlight. We get a motorcycle. We get lunch. We trick it. We eat our lunch. We made a trap. It gets trapped. We got it for a pet. We got all of his gold. We got to buy a playmobil. We also got all of his magic. It was fun looking for him. We found very good clues.

*This is VERY edited with spelling.*

We've just had one leprechaun visit so far this month. Someone came and turned our milk green! I wonder what they will do next?!?

The past 20 hours...

...have been just delightful! It's been beautiful here. Annie proclaims several times each day that, "This is the perfect day to go on a walk!" Yesterday, we didn't go on a walk and instead rode bikes in the street and played outside all afternoon. Dad came home from school early (yippee!!!) and found 3 children covered in a mud (they are making a dam) and a wife relaxing outside in her chair with a book. Fabulous afternoon.

Kids go in tub. Quick and yummy dinner (quesadillas with pepper jack cheese and leftover cranberry chicken dipped in BBQ sauce and broccoli on side). Kids all asleep by 7:10. I finished my book and headed to a friend's for a massage. W.O.W. This was my first *of many* time to visit this friend, and I much enjoyed my therapeutic massage. She went from head to toe and addressed each tight spot on my body. Different from anything I've had before but was so yummy!

I came home to a husband that was laughing so hard, he had tears running down his face. That's what he gets for sneaking mint M&Ms!!! We quickly fall asleep...and wake up...8 1/2 hours later!!! No children came downstairs!!!! Ben woke up and went to Legos. Annie and Emily played with plastic Easter eggs.

We were out of milk, so I told the kids last night I would make pancakes. Ummm, even though I didn't know I was going to sleep until almost 8am! Ben and Annie to school and then I went to my chiropractor appointment - without little Emily! Andy has late class on Thursday (thus, no alarm set this morning), so he kept Emily for me. It was fabulous. I lay on a massage table for 15 minutes before having adjustment. I walked out of his office almost delirious, my body was so relaxed!!!

Now I need to do my dishes from last night and the laundry I've avoided for the last several days... BUT - as I type this, Andy is at an interview for a Summer internship, so this day could turn out to be even more fabulous!!!

The Past Few Weeks...

...at church!

1. Our little family sang in church a few weeks ago. A friend asked about 6 weeks ago if we would be willing to do sing sometime. I hesitantly said yes. 2 weeks later she gave us a date. So, every night for the last 3 weeks we have practiced I Love to See the Temple. We even drove 2 hours to the temple Friday night (and 2 hours home) to get more into the mood. ***Must have a little history, Ben is TERRIFIED of being in front of people at church. He pretended to sleep through the Primary program in October and has NEVER gone up to sing for Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc. Andy and I have been so nervous/dreading this opportunity. This morning was the absolute happiest Sunday morning I think we’ve ever had! We practiced the song about 10 times. Ben knows both verses and corrects Andy and I when we get them backwards. Annie knows about 70%. Church finally comes. It’s our turn and Emily only wants to play with the microphone. Andy picks her up and she screams/cries through the whole song. Ben came up to the podium without us having to drag him but wouldn’t look at the congregation; he just scowled at the bishopric. Annie stood on the platform and sang at the end. Alas, it is over. I’ve never pretended we are perfect, but it went much better than I was expecting! Amazingly, both Andy and I’s primary classes went better today than they ever have before. I had such a great time with my 7 10-year-olds, devouring the scriptures. It was fabulous.

2. The Heir of Slytherin: Last week our lesson was about Abraham and his covenants with God. I was supposed to teach them about what an heir is and that when you are baptized you are adopted into the tribes of Israel and thus become an HEIR to Abraham's blessings. So, we played hangman to get the class started. (I put on every body part I could think of, but the poor little man hung before they got it.) One of the kids said, "Like the heir of Slytherin?" YES!!! So, we proceeded to talk about Harry Potter for a bit and tried to make the distinction to Abraham. I'm a cool Primary teacher!

3. I'm giving a talk next Sunday on the blessings of the Sacrament. I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going with it, but I'm open to great suggestions if you have any... Here's the plan (if you don't go to church with me)

• there are laws, God is bound when we follow commandments blessings follow
• quick overview that Jesus instituted Sacrament to remember him
• preparing for Sacrament (Elder Oaks's talk from 2009)
• personal blessings - including answers to prayers

Any other ideas????

4. We sure love having Andy sit with us each week. And driving to and from church together. And taking beautiful walks around our neighborhood as we did today (with the sun SHINING!!!).

Snow Dumping

Andy loves Ohio. He loves the snow and feels like a kid again. He is more excited to go and play in it than the kids are. So, when we woke up ten days ago to over a foot of snow, he was so excited! Especially, after 2 1/2 hours of shoveling when a sweet neighbor can and plowed the rest of our LONG driveway! The snow cave is being reconstructed! Lots and lots and lots of snow. Annie hated it because the snow was so high, it would cover her boots and sneak inside. I have that covered now! I gave her some bigger ones and Annie's to Emily, so everyone is happily covered...except me (but I don't whine as much as the kids do). This is the leftover from the snow plow - you can see from about 2 feet from where Andy is standing to the road - would have taken another 4 hours!

This is the front yard; our fire hydrant is completely covered.

Carving out the guts of the cave!

They put water in a circular sled and let it freeze overnight. After church on Sunday, they put a 'window' in the cave. It is so awesome. We ride on a sled to get in. Our entire family was in the cave and could have easily played cards or a board game. I can completely stand up and Andy almost can. It is seriously AWESOME!

The pathway to enter...

Standing on the inside of the cave by the window. They also poked air holes throughout the cave which also let in light.

One of our rules is they can't be in there without an adult (Andy) and he is back to being REALLY busy, so we've come up with lots of other outside activities - snow balls, making a slide, finding the fire hydrant, knocking off icicles, etc. (Although I think the fun came from building it, not necessarily playing in it. I think they need to camp inside it because it is surprisingly warm inside!) I even got dressed warm and playing the snow Saturday; it was a blast. We had a great time. Now I've just GOT to find some snow boots that feel good. It's been fun, but we were SO SAD that Aunt Jamie's flight was cancelled and she didn't get to visit for Valentine's Day. It was Ben's first one without her. :(