Father and son breakfast

Xavier's preschool hosted a Father and son breakfast. Leading up to this event Xavier would ask me every day if it was the daddy breakfast yet. When the day finally came Xavier could hardly contain himself. He pretty much rushed out the door the minute Tim said it was time to go tugging on Tim as he ran.

When they came home Xavier was absolutely high as a kite! His enthusiasm was contagious! They went all out. They started out the morning with breakfast, then the children and dad's made a 3-D house craft. (Xavier drew our family on the sides of the house) It was so cute. The kids also got up and sang a couple songs to the fathers. They also came home with several projects the kids have been working on all month.

A foot bookmark with a poem on the back.

A Father's Day card with a tie that says "super dad".

Daddy's car- Tim is in the front and Xavier is in the back.

Xavier's car with his "racing" number on the side.

The two happiest boys in the room. Don't you love Tim's tie?

The kids sure did a great job making the daddy's feel "Super" special.

I just so happened to catch Xavier in a performing mood one morning and got him to sing the daddy songs for the camera. (Please ignore the toys all over the table and the fact that he is eating while he's performing)

Adventure Aquarium

As an early birthday present Tim and I surprised Xavier with a trip to our local aquarium. Xavier's love of the ocean and everything in it, most importantly sharks, makes this an exciting event. We had a blast gazing at all the amazing and intriguing ocean life Adventure Aquarium had to offer.

Here is our little octopus!

Oh no! It's a shark! AaaaH!

The jellyfish exhibits were some of my favorite. They are made of mostly water...I find that so interesting and the way that they glow, you can't help but stare.

Xavier likes the jellyfish a lot too.

There were several exhibits that allowed you to touch the sea life. We got to touch sea stars (they are no longer called starfish because they aren't fish at all). We also touched sea anemones, sea cucumbers, small sharks, and rays.

Isn't this awesome. The chandelier type fish hanging rotated in a circle. Gavin kept staring and staring as it went around and around.

They had two different shark tanks- this one had sand tiger sharks, hammerhead sharks, eels, huge sea turtles, black tip reef sharks, and a couple others.

In the words of Xavier, "We have to take care of our oceans (and sharks)". The movies portray sharks as these man-eaters, when really they are natural predators with a commanding presence in our oceans. They are beautiful creatures and we had a blast seeing so many different kinds up close, well as close as we'll ever get.

Open your mouth big and wide! It's a Megaladon's mouth! Xavier knew exactly what this was as soon as he walked up to it, I couldn't believe it.

I could have just sat in front of this tank and gazed at the ocean life for hours. Xavier was most excited to see the scuba diver in the tank. I think Xavier would have jumped in if he could have. They actually offer opportunities to swim with the sharks. Not sure I'd be brave enough to do that. But if I could do anything and go back to school again I think I would become a marine biologist. I have learned so much because of Xavier's interest in the ocean and there is so much more to learn.

Some of the creepier things we saw were gigantic eels and barracudas- boy they are ferocious and U-G-L-Y.

After we explored every corner of the aquarium the kiddos took a nice nap in the car. My two sleeping princes. I could watch them like this for hours. What is it about a sleeping child that just brings peace to my heart?

That completes our adventures at the aquarium for one day. Xavier has already asked to go again. Maybe one day we can go whale watching. That would be an even grander adventure eh?

I love this little man. No matter what is going on he can always make me smile. I've caught a few cute videos of him lately. His latest tricks are kisses and dancing. He also does this thing where he tenses up his body and makes a scared/nervous look on his face. It's hilarious. I'll try to post them if my computer cooperates.

St. Patrick's Day 2011

I have come to really love St. Patrick's Day. I know that seems weird, because it's not usually a favorite holiday for most people. Not to mention it's basically a holiday where people drink and being Mormon that's not something I do. But this is why I love it:

For the past several years the weather has been gorgeous! This year did not disappoint.
I can wear green. Not only for the holiday, but for my school, and March Madness is also during this time.
It's an excuse to do something fun for my kids.
I'm reminded of how "lucky" I am to have 2 handsome little boys and one wonderful husband.

St. Patrick's Day this year was a hit. The night before I scattered gold coins all over our house and made a trail by Xavier's bed. I also died our milk green and the toilet water green.

Xavier woke me up saying "Mom, look what I found! Treasure!" As he ran around the house he found more and more treasure. Sitting by our fireplace was the biggest treasure of all. I got this idea from secrets of a supermommy. I filled Gavin and Xavier's shoes with green stuff- green juice, green headbands, green socks, green glow sticks, green chapstick, green tic tacs, and fizzy tub colors.

I set these out on the table for Xavier and Tim to have in the morning from me.

Then I made green smoothies- using spinach, mango, and vanilla yogurt. I was a little worried it wouldn't taste very good, but it was actually very tasty indeed. Xavier enjoyed it too. (Those leprechauns aren't the only ones who know how to be tricky)

After breakfast I took Xavier to pre-school. He was in charge of the snack for school. The teacher wanted me to bring something green. After having lots of birthdays and cupcakes for snack the last couple weeks I wanted to make sure our snack was healthy. I made mini fruit kabobs. I took toothpicks and placed a green grape, kiwi, honeydew and a cube of mozzarella cheese at the end. I included a water bottle for each child and some pretzel sticks too. The kids loved it!

Now that my mom is retired from teaching she's been sending me a packet of projects each month for me and Xavier to do. This was our leprechaun art. Xavier added the tissue paper as his gold and colored his leprechaun yellow. We had fun creating our very own leprechaun. No matter how hard we looked we weren't able to catch the silly ones that crept into our house overnight and turned the toilet water green, our milk green, and left a trail of coins all over the house.

The weather was awesome so Xavier and I headed to the park for some much needed jumping, climbing, swinging, and playing. Luckily daddy worked from home, so I left Gavin at home with him (napping).

I'm the luckiest lady alive!

To end our day we enjoyed some NCAA basketball, an Irish feast of corned beef and cabbage, a family walk, and a green bath. Happy St. Patty's Day 2011.

New Calling

I have been serving in the Primary Presidency as the Secretary since about October. I have loved serving in this calling and have found that it's tested my organizational skills. Keeping track of 100+ children is quite a daunting task. I have loved the women I've served with and I have learned so much from them.

About two weeks ago I received shocking news. The current Primary President in our ward was being released and I was called to be the new Primary President. I did not see this coming. When the calling was extended to me my jaw kind of dropped and I had to laugh. All that ran through my mind was all the reasons I wasn't the right person for this calling. I couldn't understand why the Lord felt I was the right person for this job. I didn't feel I had anything to offer and certainly didn't think I would be able to handle the stress of keeping up with my own household and overseeing all the youth organizations under the Primary umbrella.

I can't teach these children. I can't take care of my family and do this too. I can barely keep up with my own life let alone 100 children in our primary. I can't, I can't, I can't.

Needless to say I have been praying A LOT the last few weeks to get some sense of peace and confirmation that I was right for this calling and that I could do it. Boy have I learned a lot about myself and I have come to know that even though there are a lot of things I can't do, I am going to focus on the things that I can do. For once I was going to stop focusing on the part of my glass that was empty and start looking at the part of my glass that was full. Instead of saying can't, here are the things I can do.

I can pray for the Lord's help.

I can call great counselors to help me in this effort.

I can have faith that me and my presidency will do what's best for the children with the Lord's guidance.

I can teach these children to love the gospel.

I can show these children my love for them.

I can bear my testimony to the children.

I can help them feel the influence of the Holy Ghost.

I can be organized.

I can ask for help.

I can learn from my mistakes.

It's okay that I'm not perfect. I can learn from this experience and grow as a person.

I can step out of my comfort zone.

Most importantly I'm not alone and I don't have to do it all myself.

I guess if Joseph Smith was able to restore the gospel beginning at the age of 14, I can perform my calling as the new Primary President for the Nazareth ward.

I'm grateful for these last two weeks. I've been relying on prayer way more than I have in a long time and I have been searching the scriptures more faithfully because of this calling. I have had such strong experiences letting me know that my Father in Heaven loves me and He loves the children of the Nazareth ward. I've been reminded that the Lord is aware of my personal circumstances and He is there for me. I have received several confirmations that I can perform this calling and it is where I am supposed to be. It's amazing to me that when I least expected something like this to happen is when I'm realizing I've needed it the most. The Lord knows me better than I know myself and I am grateful for that knowledge. The best part of this entire experience is that I have noticed a decrease in contention and negativity in my home and more peace and harmony. My cup runneth over already.

Wish me luck! It won't be easy, but it WILL be worth it.

Seuss Extravaganza

March 2nd was Dr. Seuss's Birthday. I absolutely love reading Dr. Seuss as do millions of people of all ages. Xavier and I have read Dr. Seuss from the time he was very little. I decided we'd have a special birthday celebration and extend the fun throughout the week. Since my camera wasn't working I don't have a lot of pictures. So here is what we did:

MIXED UP MONDAY: To kick off our week we wore our clothes backwards. We also made sure our clothes didn't match, including our socks.

TOP HAT TUESDAY: We read Cat in the Hat and made Cat-in-the-hat Hats.

We also read Horton Hears a Who (which is one of X's favorites) and made our own whoville. I took a green popsicles stick, glued a pink pom pom on the stick, and then used a tiny white pom pom as the speck.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: We read Wacky Wednesday, Fox in Sox, and the Foot Book.

We wore silly socks and tried to repeat tongue twisters. Xavier got a kick out of Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear and Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickle Peppers. We were rolling with laughter.

We also made our own foot books. I traced our feet on cardstock and cut out a bunch of copies. Then we wrote things about our feet- what they look like, what they smell like, what they like to do, what they don't like. etc.

We also had relay races in different types and sizes of shoes.

Since Wednesday was Dr. Seuss's actual birthday we celebrated with a dinner of green eggs and ham followed by reading the story. We also made a simple Cat in the Hat treat by frosting a vanilla wafer white and stacking some red lifesavers to make a top hat.

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THEODORE THURSDAY: We learned a little bit about Theodore Geisle

We read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish and did some math and counting activities with goldfish crackers. We also made a button collage fish craft.

This was one that we hadn't read before and Xavier really liked it a lot. It has such a great message about saying sorry when we do something wrong. We had to make some of our own Oobleck of course. Ooey and gooey!

We did lots of reading and after this week we have continued to read Dr. Seuss a lot. We've read a lot of our favorites, but we also discovered many we hadn't read before. I love to read and it is something I want my kids to love doing as well. Thank you Dr. Seuss for making reading so fun. The world of imagination is alive in each one of your books! Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

There are soooo many fun things you can do with Dr. Seuss. I think the Seuss Extravaganza will be a yearly tradition.

Eight Months

I don't have an eight month photo yet because our camera is broken and has been sent in for repairs. I pulled out our old camera (thank heavens I kept it) and took some pictures, but the battery died and I can't find the base to charge it, so this photo will have to do for the time being. Of course, I'm going crazy because I've missed so many cute photo ops lately.

Gavin at eight months is becoming quite the little fella. He weighs in at 18 lbs. 7 oz. His new hair is growing in pretty light, so I'm thinking he will be a little toe-head. His eyes I'm pretty sure will be hazel like his daddy.

This month has also been a rough one for our little tike. He caught a cold from his brother that quickly turned into bronchiolitis. He was put on breathing treatments to help with his wheezing, but it didn't really help, so we had to just wait it out. He had to sleep in his car seat, propped up in his Boppy, or with us for a couple weeks. My happy little guy was miserable. It was so hard to see him feel so yucky. He even hated eating solids and nursing. At one point I was having to feed him breast milk with a syringe because nursing was difficult with his congestion. This week he's finally turned the corner and doing tons better.

Gavin is starting to get into everything. He never sits still and is always trying to explore a new corner of the house. He still army crawls everywhere, but gets up on all fours when he's really excited about something. His favorite spot is by our kitchen sliding door. He loves to touch the rugs that are furry and fuzzy.

His favorite sound to make right now is the lip smacker. Every time I say kisses he smacks his lips together. It's adorable.

He is even starting to show some stranger anxiety. (I'm not excited about this one, but I guess that means he's developing normal) Mommy is definitely his favorite person, which I will soak up as long as it lasts.

Gavin loves feeding himself. We've introduced a few finger foods to him and he likes bananas, LOVES carrots, and LOVES LOVES LOVES cheerios.

Bath time with brother is the highlight of his day. Now that he's rolling and scooting everywhere he loves laying on his belly in the tub and kicking his legs like a frog as fast as he can. I get a kick out of watching him and Xavier lying side by side on their bellies and giggling in the tub. It's probably my favorite time of day too.

It baffles me to think that Gavin will be a year old in four months. He's still as happy as ever, but he's turning into one curious little man. He's learning quick from that big brother of his.

Some February crafts

Valentine heart sponge painting collage

Handprint flowers- we sent these as Valentines to some friends and family

Handprint heart Valentine card

We took some of our letter blocks and rubbed them onto the card with crayons.

Easy and fun!