Hair Cut

Joseph was in desperate need of a haircut, and since we were at Gramma's he got one. He'll probably get another one, next month, in preparation for summer.


Since Joseph got a haircut, I asked Elena if she wanted one. Her hair has been bugging me for a while, because she had this grown-out-Mohawk thing going, where the hair down the center of her head was several inches longer than anything else, and didn't curl. It never looked good unless it was pulled back in a ponytail, but it rarely stayed in the ponytail for more than a couple hours. Most of the time she just had a poofy mess with a 4 inch tail.



My mom helped me with the theory, since she's been doing this sort of thing for forever. Yes, I cut my own hair, but it's a very different operation from cutting someone else's, especially a girl's. The back is now the same length as the sides, and there's a tiny bit of layering. I'll let her wear it for a few weeks and see if this helps. If the shorter length isn't helping any, I'll have her grow it back out. At least that's pretty quick when she's still fairly small. Jonathan thinks it's too short. I might even agree on that, but I still think it needed to get evened out.



Once I get it washed, I'll put up more pictures.

New Stake

...but we're not in it. My parents and my brother Brent are, though. Yup, my parents jumped from the stake north of us to the stake south of us. Ah the joys of ambiguous geography. Our ward does pick up a few families that are close enough to our building that no one wanted to make them drive all the way to Kyle (just as my parents lost a few, for similar reasons). Strangely enough, we could have sworn that that strip of land was already in our ward. Ah, well. Hopefully it'll make up for the dozen+ families that have/will move to Parkwood since last summer. Anyway, there's two wards from New Braunfels, plus Seguin, San Marcos (family & university), Plum Creek, Parkwood and Bastrop. We'll miss you, Brent and Regan. It was nice to have the option of sitting with family at Stake Conferences. Good luck with the new stake, and we hope the transition goes smoothly for everyone.

Picnic Party

The Elder's Quorum finally got around to having a social and getting my husband to tell me about it. Since it's been pretty quiet in the post-Easter lull, he even got to take off from work and join us. Yippee! I brought the camera, but it never left the diaper bag, so sorry for the lack of pictures.

We had hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, sliced fruit, and juice boxes. The invite said to bring a salad, so I made potato salad. Adults chatted while the kids played on the playground. The EQ presidency brought kites, as well, and while the kite-eating tree ate two of them, Jonathan kept his up and away from danger. I sunscreened everyone while it was still cloudy, so I didn't have to worry when the sun finally came out. All in all, 3 1/2 hours, lots of food, good company, worn out kiddos, no sunburns or abrasions (or fractures, despite Joseph's best attempts)--it was a great day.

1/3 Down

Today is the last day of my first trimester, and I haven't been sick! Yay! I'm not totally out of the woods for another week, but it's still very encouraging. Hooray for the 2nd trimester upswing!

Easter

My parents love having the kids come out for a big Easter Satuday party, each year, and we love getting to see so much family at one time. We started with a yummy lunch and some Bunny Bingo. Elena won some Easter stamps and a "Playground Mickey Mouse" book.


We all looked for eggs outside. There were some in the vegetable patch, some in the flowers, and even some in the trees. Joseph ran to all the eggs he could find, so excited that he could pick them up. At one point he had five in his hands before I could catch up with the basket. Elena liked to pause and check each of her eggs to see what was inside.



After all the eggs were found, everyone looked to see what they'd gotten.


Jonathan got off work in the mid-afternoon, and Elena told me that while I was off to get him she "played balloons with [her] boy cousins." The kids had pizza and root beer with all the cousins and a sitter, while the adults went out for a very nice quiet dinner. The whole day was fantastic.

This is Easter morning, thus the change of clothes. The strange lighting is because it's 8am and the sun was just barely shining through the lattice that's up against the back door.


We hope your Easter has been wonderful, and that you've felt the blessings of the Savior in your life!

Hope For a Better Season

It's time to renew hope and try again for a better world. Yup, it's tomato time. And maybe, this year, I can keep the stinkin' birds away from my crop. We went to the Natural Gardener with some of the ladies we Visit Teach so the kids (all 7) could run around and look at the chickens, goats and donkeys while the adults chatted and shopped for veggies for spring planting. Everyone had a good time, and I ended up with patio and sweet 100 tomatoes and titan (?) bell peppers. I've only got three good pots, so I have to limit myself. Anyway, I got them planted up this afternoon, and I think they look pretty good. Is anyone else growing something fun? If so, tell us please.

At Last!

Elena asked for a "puckle" for Christmas a year ago and has, since then, insisted on scooting along with feet firmly on the ground... until today!



We went outside while Joseph napped, hoping to enjoy the sunshine and let Elena burn off some energy. We brought the tricycle out with us and she hopped right on and started peddling down the sidewalk. She got really good by the time we decided to go back in. Here's another run:




P.S. The chipmunk cheeks are because she has grapes stuffed in there.

Healing

His poor, poor eye... He fell down and hit the step while brushing his teeth, last Thursday. This is way better than it used to look, though. It's cleared up a lot, just in the last 12 hours. I just didn't want to immortalize it at its worst.


Speaking of worst, he seemed to think that once you've got the shiner you can let the rest of the face go. On Monday he had: healing goose-egg + bruise on forehead, deep purple bruise along eye socket, bright red bruise on eyeball, scratch down side of nose, split lower lip, and careless disregard for safety.

Introspection

Marin got me thinking about labels. We all have our labels. Here are some of mine: I'm a 28 year-old white female with 5 brothers and no sisters, wife to a student and mother of 2.5 children, who knits, sews, makes the occasional greeting card, reads obsessively, grows my own tomatoes, stalks bargains like lions after antelope, can form well-turned similes in coherent sentences, has weak spelling, and has visceral reactions to sharp objects in medical settings. But do any of those actually tell you anything about me? Only if you know where to look.

So let's try this, instead. Strip out all the things I do. "Mom" is what I do, but it's not the sum total of my being. The same goes for knitting and reading, and all the others. It's not a question of what I do, but why.

I like to make things. It's why I knit. It's why I sew. It's why I garden. In all honesty, it's why I have children. (and get your minds out of the gutter, all of you!) I love to see creation in action. I like planning, dreaming, fussing over every detail. And no matter what I create, I put a piece of my soul into it. Sometimes things just don't come out the way I wanted, and sometimes they're perfect. That's part of life, part of the adventure. Starting wouldn't be worth it if I already knew exactly what will happen.

I also tend to choose quiet, meditative activities, things that take time to finish. I tend my plants like I tend my children. I give them the nurturing and support they need but let them decide which trellis to climb. I keep my hands busy, but my mind is free to ponder.

I still like the noise of life, though. I need it to feel alive, but I don't want to be in the very center. I will dive from the side of the pool, but never the high dive. I want to be part of the conversation, even if I only listen. I live my life on the edges.

So, here is my challenge to all of you. Consider your own labels. Most people never see beyond them. Can you? Who are you really? I'd love to find out.

Item:

1) Driving home (from church, I think) Elena looks out over the side of the bridge, across the train tracks, and says "There's our new home!"

"Our new home? Where?"

"Our new home in Ostricha." Then she points at our apartment, that we just pulled up to, and says "See? It's our new home. In Ostricha."

2) Joseph has suddenly started using words. They're still very simple words, but he says bear ("bur" as opposed to bird, which is "ber"), spoon (all eating utensils are "poo(n)"), train ("fren"), eye ("ah"), nose ("no"), cheek ("teek"), Elena (using a marker he's not supposed to have: "Where did you get that?" "ah-mehna!"), and dog ("dok"). All this supplements his previous vocabulary, which consisted entirely of Mommy ("mama"), Daddy ("dada"), ball ("bah!!!") and banana (oops! "nena" is the usual pronunciation of Elena--banana is "nahnah").

Knitting Night

Our Relief Society has several mid-week activities going, and this week's is my chance to teach knitting. It's Thursday night at 7, at my friend Janessa's house, and if any of you would like to come I'd love to have you. Just call or email for directions.

Night On The Town

My fabulous in-laws were given some theater tickets, and decided to invite us along.


We found a babysitter; convinced our companions to try out our favorite place to eat out, Malaga, and made sure we could get seating as soon as we showed up; and massaged Jonathan's work schedule so we wouldn't be rushing too much.

Dinner was fantastic, still the best calamares I've ever tasted, and the lamb was quite tasty as well. Frances loved how the little forks make you feel dainty. David liked the food enough that he said he wanted to come back, so I think we've made a conquest. It's a very different experience from most American restaurants, so we're really glad they had a good time.

We were only 5 blocks from the theater, and the weather was lovely, so we walked over. (I have to say that I love walking around downtown at night. There's so much to look at.) Our seats were up in the balcony. Not the best in the house, but convenient to the exits and we still had a decent view. We scoured the program for my friend Casey. We knew she was in the play, but I didn't know what part. The play was good, though I have to say that once you've crewed a play, you shouldn't watch one from the balcony. I was distracted from the action by the glow-in-the-dark set marks and seeing how each of the set pieces turned into other set pieces. I'm betting it would have been less distracting if we were on the floor. Ah, well. It was still a great evening, we had a lot of fun, Casey was fantastic (I want her costumes!) and we got the sitter home right when we said we would.

Thanks for the night out!