Whirlwind

This past month or so has been a fun, albeit busy one.  Do I even need to say that, though?  Aren't all of our months busy?  Anyway, we made a crazy dash down to St. George.  It all began with a decision reached at about 6:30 p.m. to leave at 8:30 p.m. rather than the following 8 a.m.  The theory was that all of the kids would of course sleep in the car the whole five hours and we would have the whole next day to explore and have fun.  Well, Atticus cooperated beautifully, sleeping the entire way, allowing us to drive straight without any stops.  Emerson and Stella, however, decided that sleeping in the car was only cool for about an hour and a half.  While Emerson simply stared blankly into the darkness surrounding the car, Stella decided to lead a revolt from the back seat of the van.  The steadily rising whine threatened to rouse Atticus, so I spent the last hour and a half of the drive literally in Stella's car seat with her on my lap, telling her stories.

But this did allow us a full day of fun the next day.  We headed out on the paved trail next to the Virgin River and counted 27 lizards in just over an hour.  We also discovered a wonderful free splash park in the middle of downtown St. George and proceeded to go there every day of our vacation.  The kids could splash, cool off, and burn off energy while we sat in the shade watching all of the fun.  We went for lots of walks, Tad did some good biking, I ran a little, and we caught up with some old friends, Dan and Angie and their adorable kids.  

While we wished our stay in St. George could have been longer, it was fun to come home and check on our garden.  We went a little crazy this year, relocating the garden to a sunnier spot and more than doubling its size.  Tad built an awesome redwood barrier around it to keep Crosby out and we planted lots of seeds: cabbage, cauliflower, watermelon, cucumber, beans, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, pumpkins, zucchini, and tomatoes.  So far everything has sprouted and we've even got little green tomatoes already!  The kids love to check it every day, closely inspecting the plants and making sure the ladybugs we released are keeping the aphids off.

Emerson finished his first soccer season on a positive note.  When he started soccer, he cared very little and didn't quite understand that the ball was his friend.  When the coach spoke, Emerson generally ignored everything, and sitting on the side meant grass wars with his buddies.  By the final game, however, Emerson was totally engaged -- kicking the ball several times, throwing it in bounds when asked, nearly scoring a goal, and cheering for his team even when he sat out.  His team even finally won a game!  But the true prize for Emerson was that he got a "real trophy," which he proudly displays on his shelf.

Stella has decided that singing in the car is her true passion.  No matter what song we listen to, she can sing along (or in a call and response style at least) at the top of her lungs.  Her personal favorites: Clash City Rockers (The Clash), These Days (Nico), and 1234 (Feist).  Life is an endless series of questions for Stella.  "Why did Maleficent make Aurora prick her finger?"  "Did Jesus have long hair?" "Is that guy being stupid?"  "Why are you wearing a ponytail?"  When I take her and Atticus running in the stroller, it's question time for Stella because she knows she can talk to me then entire time and I must answer.

Atticus is the jolliest little guy!  At three months he's smiling and laughing like crazy, grabbing toys and trying desperately to get them to his mouth, and nearly fitting his entire fist in his mouth.  He already wants to see everything Emerson and Stella do and thrills them when he smiles at them.  I've lost track of the number of rolls he's accumulated and he continues to adore nursing to the exclusion of bottles.

Tad was the recipient of one lucky birthday present this month.  He's been riding an old road bike to work since last fall and as he was riding it one day, a defense attorney he knows pulled up next to him in his car with a super fancy road bike on the back.  The next time Tad saw him, the defense attorney asked if Tad would like to buy his "old" road bike.  Tad responded that $3,500 for the three-year-old bike was completely impossible for him and the defense attorney said he'd let Tad have it for under $1,000.  So a few days later, Tad rode home on his new sweet ride at a final cost of only $750!  This has completely changed his biking life and he's now obsessed with riding the canyons around our valley (he's already done two).  Lucky guy!

Blessed

Here are some pics of Atticus and the two other babies blessed on the same day he was, Ruth Snow and Elana Mayer.  Oh, it's fun to have this little chubby guy around!  He coos and "talks" to us while smiling.

New Roof!

When we moved into our house two years ago, we knew we eventually needed to replace the roof.  After two years of debating how to do it, trying to come up with the money, and dreading the expense, we finally got our roof redone last week.  And despite having to go all the way down to the rafters and put on new boards, the crew we hired did it in only a day and a half!  Sometimes it really helps to have a small house.  What's more, they did an awesome job, leaving us with a beautiful new roof with good venting and totally cleaning up after themselves (I only found a few nails after they left).  We also got our gutters done, which only took two hours total!  So, if you need referrals for roofers and gutter guys who are really good, reliable, and inexpensive, give me a call.

More importantly, we also had a lovely Easter weekend.  The kids did a really fun egg hunt with Grandma Baker's ward in the huge, beautiful yard behind a neighbor's home.  Everyone loved it, especially since they divide up the kids by age so no older kids get to hog all the eggs.  Emerson, it appears, is moving out of the simple belief in holiday characters stage.  At the egg hunt, a member of Grandma's ward was wearing a big, fuzzy Easter Bunny costume. When we said, "Look, Emerson, it's the Easter Bunny," he replied, "No, that's just some guy in a dumb suit."

  Later, he observed a zipper on the back of the imitation bunny's costume and said, "See, you can see it's a suit right there.  And look, he has shoes!"  Oh, dear.

We also blessed Atticus in our church on Easter Sunday.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and I take it as a miracle that we were able to all get decked out in our Easter finest and make it to church 15 minutes early!  Atticus was one of three babies being blessed that day -- I and two other friends of mine in our ward had babies within 19 hours of each other.  Since Atticus was the youngest, he was the last to go, but miraculously none of the three babies cried.

 Tad was able to convey some special words from our Heavenly Father in his blessing and it was truly a spiritual occasion.  We had so many friends and family come to the blessing and our little gathering afterwards and we want to thank all of them for sharing our special day.

Atticus continues to grow like he's in a contest.  By his two-month appointment last week, he weighed in at 13 lbs. 4 oz. -- after getting down to 7 lbs. 9 oz. in the hospital.  He generally sleeps pretty well and is truly a mild, smily guy most of the time.  He especially likes to smile at me at 4 a.m. when I'm trying to handle our feeding session in a businesslike, though bleary-eyed manner.  I can't resist him and each time I get sucked into a smiling conversation back and forth.  Magical!

Stella continues to love all things princess, particularly her Cinderella cell phone, on which she pretends to have long conversations with Dad, Uncle Tim, and others.  She truly is Tad's little girl, completely sharing his sense of humor.  She calls everyone silly names like "Duckhead."  The other day, she, Tad and Emerson were in the back yard doing some cleanup.  She crossed the yard to the sandbox and upon reaching it triumphantly pumped her arms up and down above her head while 

shouting, "Yes, yes, yes!  I didn't step in any dog poop!"  And she loves to push Emerson's buttons, deliberately messing up a word in a song just to get on his nerves.

Emerson is currently immersed in the worlds of Bionicles (Lego-made gladiator creatures that can be reconfigured several ways) and Magic Treehouse books.  No, he's not reading the books on his own.  We read to him after he reads the chapter headings.  He starts soccer next week and loves his uniform, number 11 on the maroon team.  He's excited to start Kindergarten but is starting to realize his preschool friends won't go there with him and his Grandma won't be there to check on him (both realizations frequently accompanied by tears).

That's the update for now!

The Coconut

I can't believe Atticus is now more than five weeks old.  And yet it seems like he's always been a part of our family.  Emerson and Stella are such champs and love to be involved in bathing, changing, and even nursing him.  And it's a good thing they like the nursing thing because that is definitely what Atticus wants to do all day every day.  Which is why he's chubbing up quickly and why Emerson calls him the coconut (something small, round, and full of milk).  Unfortunately Atticus got his first cold this past week, so any semblance of routine he was developing is now gone.  But he remains pretty mellow despite his very stuffed up nose and consequent grunting piggie sounds.  He really seems to enjoy his sibs and loves being in the baby carrier awake or asleep.

They Might Be Giants

For any interested kids or parents, we've been listening to They Might Be Giants' kids' albums, Here Come the 123s and Here Come the ABCs for quite a while now.  But we only recently discovered that the band did podcasts for kids with animated videos to go along with the songs.  Now here is where you infer that our kids have been sitting in front of our new computer watching videos online for hours on end since the little guy was born.  And you'd be correct.  But at least they're watching educational stuff like this (and The White Stripes Seven Nation Army video while literally headbanging).  Here's a link to the youtube video for "Zeros" and you'll see that there are at least 15 other videos as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8pySVYytRs

Now your kids can become vegetables too.  Happy viewing!