Thoughts

• I love my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. Last Fridy I used it three times. First, I ground some wheat into flour and then I turned that flour into bread. And finally for dinner I used it to make waffles. I love that it is blue, too.
• I love that my sweet husband gets me a corsage for Mother's Day every year. It is a tradition that I love and hope my children will someday carry on in their families.
• Asparagus fresh from your garden has a wonderful flavor eaten raw.
• It is okay to have pancakes for lunch if your 4 year old asks for them and it is okay for them to be gray (using varoious mixes of food color per 4 year old directions).
• And if your 18 month old sees the pancakes and has the wherewithal to get the spray whip cream out of the fridge while the door is open, then you should put it on the pancakes.
• The temple is a wonderful place! If you have not been in awhile, I suggest you go soon!
• The Tooth Fairy should not forget to come but if the tooth fairy does then leave a message saying you were held up at a dental confernece and leave an extra quarter the next night as a late fee and all will be forgiven. (Except, for the guilt you feel each time your child tells someone that he lost a tooth and they ask if the tooth fairy came and he says no.)
• I WILL learn to receive and recognize personal revelation in my life. I actually have been able to think of times I have felt prompted to do something but I have not always recognized that as personal revelation. I will then teach my children the importance of recognizing when and how the Holy Ghost speaks to them.
• Don't become concerned if your nearly 18 month old is not really talking because all in one week she will decide to say "Uh-oh, Joseph, Please, Thank you, quack (when she sees ducks or birds), bye bye" and mimic several other things as you talk to her. Go figure!
• Humidity does make heat feel worse. Although, I still don't think I will miss those 114 days of Vegas.
• Finally, play until you just can not play anymore. He fell asleep with the game running.(See below picture taken a few days ago when Jon insisted on wearing a sweatshirt even though it was 85 degrees outside.)

We finally went to this park that we have been hearing about.

Kids Kastle.

Great fun!

There is gravel all over and Arabella loves it. She picks up a rock and hands it to you like it is the most precious jewel in the world, until the next rock 5 minutes later.

Jon is about to cross the swinging balance beam.

Joey standing in one of the castle turrets.

There are slides and swings that make everyone happy.

Jon loves this rocket and you can not see him because he is using one of the 3 steering wheels inside of it to drive it to Mars.

Joey the great conquering explorer guiding his boat.

We also had another pack meeting. It was a Spacer Derby/Rocket Derby. It was really cool. The scouts all did a great job! Some of the rockets got serious airtime.

Peter all dressed up in his scout uniform-shorts even.

This is a bad video of the rocket our family made but you get the idea that it was really cool. The second time we launched it, it did loopty loops and went across the street.

As a quick side note, we have a contract with one of the people that offered on our house in Vegas. We resubmitted all of our paper work to the mortgage company and our attorney's office and now we get to wait for awhile. I hope it moves quickly.

Nothing and then BAM!

We officially placed our house "on the market" the day before we moved out of Las Vegas. We had one offer within a few weeks but it took forever to gather all of the paper work and then wait for the mortgage company to evaluate and decide if we could short sale or not. It came back as a flat NO. We had to call and ask why and nobody could tell us anything but that the investors must not have felt we were a high enough risk of default to short sale. Arrrrggh! But, Tuesday was a new day! We ended the day with 3, yes three, offers followed by a 4 yesterday. All of these wonderful people who would like to sign a contract before May 1st so they can ge the rebate. We hope the mortgage company is more willing this go around. Keep your fingers crossed!

Happenings and Ponderings

Yes, that is Arabella! Yes, I did that to her hair! And yes I have only done it once because she does not believe in holding still that long.
Our boys competed in a tournament in Forney, TX a few weeks ago. They both did an awesome job! They both earned two gold medals. All Tiny Tigers that compete get gold medals but they really did a great job! We are so proud of them.

Jon really was excited despite his expression in this picture.

Rain for a few days+last bit of topsoil waiting to be spread in flowerbeds+"Play outside while I make dinner"= the pictures you are now seeing.

Arabella was not one bit bothered by the mud on her face.

The big dump truck Joey is using was full to overflowing with thick mud.

"No throwing mud balls!"

Jon in time out for throwing mud balls and Arabella keeping him company. Nice muddy hands, knees, feet, etc.

Joey doing his form at the tournament.

Now for some ponderings.

It has been just over a year now that Peter lost his job. Last April General Conference, you never could have convinced me that I would be living in Texas before the year was up. It has been a strange journey. I am grateful for the experience though. Peter and I have learened how to rely upon the Lord and one another. We had so much love and support from our families and our friends. We MISS being closer to our family and our friends. We are still trying to sell our house in Las Vegas and that has been an experience in itself- mostly frustrating. The blessings we have are overwhelming though. We each have a good job that we enjoy and is supporting our family. We love our new house and the process of decorating to make it our own is fun. And our ward is great! It is wonderful to be in a place where you can serve and have the chance to meet so many strong members of the church. We know how fortunate we are, especially becasue some of our friends are still looking for a job. We are praying for them. All in all, this has been one of those times where we have been able to step back and see the Lord's hand in our lives leading and guding us in the ways he would have us go.

Easter Activities

First, I just love what a small child can do with frosting! Yummmmy!!!

The following pictures are from the Lewisville Easter Egg Hunt the weekend before Easter weekend. We had a good time! The worst was athe poorly designed parking lot with only one entrance and 4 different activities taking place at one park. It took over an hour to get out of the parking lot.

Run Jon, run!

As you can see the kids scored! Each egg only had one peice of candy but there were little booths and they won more candy at those.

For Easter Weekend (and this last week), we were so lucky because Grandma and Grandpa Rabner came to visit. We loved playing with them and having them go to all of our activities with us. The kids of course loved coloring eggs! Arabella thought stirring the colors was the best part.

Dad and Grandpa were busy in the yard and missed out on the "dying" fun!

We built a tent to watch conference in, just like the people in King Benjamin's time. The kids did okay with the coloring pages and bingo cards the first session but after that they just wanted to play. I have already shared how wonderful I thought conference was.

Saturday, during priesthood session Lanell and I took the kids out to eat and then to see How to Train a Dragon. The kids were really good at the restaurant and the movie was so good! I really liked it and the kids all enjoyed it.

Joey was so determined to catch the Easter Bunny but was unsuccessful. He did wake up at 5:30 but Peter sent him back to bed. At 7:00 we discovered all of the eggs and baskets.

Grandma and Grandpa even got in on the fun!

Jon was so excited to get bubbles.

Monday we all, Peter too, headed for the zoo. We loved the zoo! There are some great animals that I do not believe I have ever seen before.

Grandpa treated the boys to a camel ride. Pretty cool, eh?!

Joey really did enjoy the ride despite the look on his face in this picture.

One thing we loved was the water feature and little farm area. I also loved that in the reptile house the really big snakes were nearly all very active, something I have never seen before.

We had packed a picnic lunch and after we ate the kids did not want to see the other half of the zoo. We had bought an annual family pass so we can go back. They wanted to take G & G to the discovery museum. The zoo and museum are nearby each other so we decided why not.

Fireman Jon

Joey had a great time with the seeds in the farm area.

My little pesky litte Peter.

Grandma and Arabella waiting for the boys to make their squished pennies.

Arabella really warmed up to both G & G during their stay. I was so glad because when she and I were in Utah she would not have anything to do with pretty much anyone.

Wednesday night was pack meeting and it was a crossing over ceremony and an arrow of light. This is good because both of these are part of Peter's wood badge goals. Peter loves to make really cool awards like this great arrow.

Peter made this bridge with the help of Bro. Dunstan. They had a great time using their tools. I think it turned out awesome! All of the boys seemed to think it was pretty cool too!

Grandpa is a great gardner and was super helpful in the yard this week. He helped Peter figure out what to do with our yard and then he made huge progress in carrying those plans out. This included tilling up the back 1/4 of our yard and getting all of this great soil. The boys were in heaven having all of that dirt to play in.

We also tilled in 15 bags of peat moss. We will have the most amazing garden. We are also planning to plant raspberry and blueberry bushes on the side of our house.

The lava rocks have been removed! When I left for work tonight Peter was just finishing the tilling and mixing of the soil and fertilizer. Flowers next!

We had so much fun with G & G Rabner. Thank you so much for the wonderful week!

Wonderful Conference

Yes, I am a week late in posting this but I wanted to let whomever (whoever) reads this know how very much I loved conference. I loved that they talked so much about family and home. I loved that Sister Beck is not afraid to say what many don't want to hear and many others would not be brave enough to say. She has such strength. I loved Pres. Monson's distinct voice brining peace to my heart and spirit with each word he spoke. Heading into conference, I was praying for inspiration to know what I should teach for my upcoming Presidency lesson. Home and family will be my topic. We need to teach our families and love them and be true to them. I am going to strive to be a better person especially to my family. My kids and my husband desreve the best of me and I need to try harder to always present the best of me.

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my 31st birthday on Friday and it was a great day!

My sweet husband woke up very early to make this delicious birthday cake from scratch for me-my favorite German Chocolate! Yummy! He also made a great breakfast. I went for a run while he was busy cooking. It was a great start to the day!

For an adventure, we went to the Stockyards in Fort Worth for the day.

This was as the cowboys were taking the cattle out to drive them through the streets.

This was my favorite longhorn becuase the horns were pointing down and not up or out to the sides.

Arabella was not too thrilled to take this picture. While we were waiting in line the longhorn took care of business and Jon would not stop talking about that.

The kids loved feeding the animals in the petting zoo. This experience led to something you will find at the end of this blog.

My chariot and drivers!

Jon saw this as we were walking out of the parking lot and wanted to ride the mechanical "bolt". He kept asking and asking. He loved every minute of it. I will have to post the video sometime.

Joey did really well on the "bolt" as well. He actually got going a bit faster and stayed on pretty well. What little cowboys we have.

This train pulled up right next to the restaurant while we were eating and Joey was more than excited. Peter and Joey went out and watched it pull on to the turntable. We took this picture after it was turned around. They had this candy store there that sold old classics. I bought Zots. It made me so happy to have that fizzy sour taste in my mouth. It was a step back in time.

It is sideways but this is my delicious cake before I blew out the candles. A friend and her family came over so that Peter and I could go to dinner. It was so nice to spend some time together out just the two of us.

This is what we did with our time together- we got a pet guinea pig. We named him Chester. We also bought three goldfish: Buzz, Lightning and Dusty.

Saturday night it did this again!!!! Friday was beautiful weather and then freezing on Saturday. We had planned to go to this preserve and museum but decided it would be too cold so we spent the day running errands around town. That resulted in the picture below.

That would be Rusty in Peter's left hand and Chester in the Peter's right hand. Apparently, guinea pigs do better in pairs and so, well, we have two now. They are loved nearly to death by our children but they seem to be tolerating it well. They are both males so there will not be any little guineas around.

We ended the weekend with a fabulous ward conference. We have a great ward and we love the people in it. They are a joy to serve with and get to know.