Wednesday - Today was Sylvie's day for the camera. She sat up today on her own from a crawling position! Somehow our computer was hacked today. I'm not very happy, to say the least. Luckily I have lots of wonderful family who is willing to help me fix it. Dade had scouts and so mom dropped him off and then took Corben to the library. It's their new Wednesday activity together. After everyone got home and went to bed Ryan and I got some time to cuddle up and watch a movie.
Easter break early. I started the day with an injured ankle after running and falling down the stairs with Sylvie in my arms at 6:30 am to wake Dade after he missed the bus. Luckily, I was still able to drive him to school in time even though it's a 20 minute drive. Sylvie decided that since she can now sit and crawl it was time to move ahead and so she now can pull herself upto a standing position. She showed off several times today. Guess that means it's time to drop the crib mattress down! Ryan got off of work early to prepare for the scout campout. He and Dade headed out in time to make it to the Young Men's basketball game (Dade was playing - they lost 48-11) and then head out to the campout. Corben and I stayed up late and watched Night at the Museum and ate popcorn. It was nice.
them! Since that's the size Ella is going in to and I don't have any clothes for her for summer, it was a wonderful surprise. Thanks Kelly!! Another nice thing, Ryan watched all the little ones while Dade and I ran out to hit the triple coupons and Harris Teeter (I saved almost 70% on my bill! YEAH!!) - you can't beat tomato 
soup for 3.5 cents each!! Then I ran in to Ross on the slim hope that the cute clogs Ella had wanted were still on the shelf and they were! She was super excited when she saw them and started yelling shoes! shoes! and has been wearing them ever since. The boys then spent some time playing with the baby girls. It's so fun to see them playing together. Ryan caught a picture of the elusive Dade Fairy (it's amazing what big brothers will do to entertain little sisters!) We ended the night with a family viewing of Underdog and then crashed to bed.
homes for most of Dade's sculptures he's made this semester in Pottery, and then I came to the pile of wax paper. There, neatly flattened between several heavy books where TONS of 4 leaf clovers I'd saved for some reason. I guess I've always felt if you find a 4 leaf clover you HAVE to pick it, but then what? Of course, you must flatten and dry them between wax paper and big books (or would that be PRESSING your Luck!!! Ha Ha Ha!). So now I have 50+ 4 leaf clovers (some 5-8 leaf -- I have pics if you don't believe me) and since I no longer scrapbook (not that I ever really did, I just had all the stuff to do it) I decided that I was truly going to make a stand and get rid of them (but not before scanning them in so I could use them to digitally scrapbook!!). So I go on Craigslist and put up an ad for someone to come and get my clovers, maybe they could use them for scrapbooking St. Patrick's day pics or just to up their luck. Well, I'm here to tell you the top reasons to NOT put your luck up for sale:
or should it be mandatory to take out handfuls and eat what you get, allowing all to have the same chance at getting the "good stuff"? My point is that I buy the Chex mix/jelly beans only for the good ones and since I bought it he can either eat the brown chex/bagel chips/green ones and be happy or he can go buy his own bag. PLUS, if I took a handful of, let's say Chex Mix, I would eat the things I love out of it and dump the stuff I hate back into the bag, thus leaving him with MORE for him to eat later of the stuff that he likes where as if I ATE the yucky stuff in my hand I'd be sad and he'd have less chex mix. I'm just helping him out. His point is that he's tired of getting stuck with all the green ones/yellow ones and wants us all to share the misery. I told him if he wants the good ones, he should get to 
them first. So, now for the solution..........CHILDREN!! Especially small ones who don't know that red jelly beans and orange jelly beans are any better than the green ones and who love the brown chex and bagel chips as if they were candy and don't know that they're missing out on the pretzels and corn chex that mommy loves so much! Now, some may say that this is mean, never letting the children get the "good stuff" but if they love the other stuff, who cares!! Some day, when they're bigger they can buy their own bags of candy and chex mix and eat whatever they want, they can even give the green ones to their kids and they'll love it just as much as my Ella loves her green sour patch kids and brown chex mix. So, Honey, you may feel you've won when you see me take that handful of mix/jellybeans/sourpatch kids and not dump any back but you will soon realize your folly. The children will be gathered around me singing my praises as I pass them green/yellow candies one after another as I enjoy my sweet reds/oranges with the full knowledge that I am the true winner!! So now, I'm going to go back to doing laundry and eating the yummy part of the chex mix I love so much!! Yeah!!
Ella had so much fun today. We met some of Ryan's family down at the pond on their property for dinner and an egg hunt. Ella was SO excited to look for eggs, especially after she opened the first one and there was candy in it. After that there was no stopping her. She was caring as
many as she could at a time, leaving daddy behind, stopping only to break one open on occasion to look for candy. Some of the candy was in packages and she would look at it, throw it down and move on to the next egg. Finally Ryan showed her how to open them which made her even more excited. We then hung out by the lake for a bit while the guys did some fishing. Afterwards we headed over to my mom's house for time with Adam & his family, Jason, and mom. It was so nice. Now we're home and the kids are all asleep and I'm so looking forward to bed!!
Well, it's Easter morning and I've decided that I should write once a week to keep everyone updated on our family doings.
Sylvie - The past two weeks have been big for our little Sylvie. She went from a lump on the floor to mobile in just about 20 minutes a couple of Tuesdays ago. She's been rolling over from back to tummy since Christmas (though she didn't do it often) and finally decided on Tues. to roll from tummy to back. She was apparently
inspired by the move and rolled back to her tummy and got on all fours! She then proceeded to scoot her way across the room to the book shelf where she pulled up and started pulling things from the 2nd shelf! I'm not ready for this whole growing up thing. She has since visited every corner of the downstairs (thus the previous blog!). She is starting to cry now if she sees her food and we don't feed her right away or if we walk by and don't pick her up right away. She can also tell when we're headed to bed and lets us know before we get there that it's somewhere she doesn't want to be. Can't say I blame her, she's still sleeping in a bassinet in our room since she and Ella wake each other up when they sleep in the same room. Hopefully that will change soon as it's affecting both her and our sleeping through the night.
Ella - Our little Ella is as full of life as always. She is however quite upset that Sylvie is now mobile and big enough for Daddy to play with and has been throwing fits of protest every night during play time. She has always been Daddy's little girl and is having some trouble sharing. She's talking
a bit more now and has added a few more signs to her "vocabulary". She signs dog, more, eat, drink, ball, book, stars, sleep, sshhh, and a few others I can't think of. She doesn't talk much but has been trying a little harder this week. She says Dad (and sometimes calls him Ryan), Mom (she doesn't actually say this, she only yells it!), Dade, juice, shoes, socks, rocks, No, yes, Silsie (Sylvie), and oh wow. We finally have to go buy a new gate for the living room as she's discovered it's flaw and has been able to escape for a couple of days now. She only sits to read a book or when she's tired. Church has been hard as Ryan often has to take or out of Sacrament meeting and we've only been able to leave her in nursery twice (out of about 10) without being called back. She cries when we're not with her. We sure love her!! 
Corben - Corben is enjoying school and reading (and memorizing) most anything he can get his hands on. He's like a little encyclopedia and loved using the ride to and from school to either quote his facts or tell me jokes from his joke book. His favorite is...What's brown and sticky?.....A Stick!! He's a silly kid. We've signed him up for baseball, which starts in another week or so. He's very excited and expects to go pro. He's usually pretty good at what ever he tries so, I guess we'll see. He was recently lead in the school play (the Nutcracker) and was top in his karate class. He is looking forward to this years garden so he can plant a giant pumpkin.
Dade - Dade is enjoying middle school. He loves computers and his video editing class has been right up his alley. He's gotten the top grades in his class. He loves programming and developing new ideas and programs. His current love is an online community called Roblox. It's basically virtual Lego's and you can build what ever you can imagine and people can come explore and
play in your world. It takes quite a bit of programming so he really enjoys it. He is growing so fast. He grew over 7 inches last year and is just 2 inches shy of my hight (5' 4.5''). He's 12 now and passing the sacrament in church every Sunday. I love seeing him serving. He's very involved in boyscouts and goes on a campout once a month. He's also playing basketball with the youth on Saturdays. He's made some great friends. He just came in top in the Xtreme Pinewood derby race. His car was remote control with fans and it was called the "Fan-tastic"!
Christy - Well I can finally rest for a bit. I held the 1st of 4 Ward Activities for the year last night and it went well. I threw a country line dancing night and had about 12 couples show. My brother Jason was the instructor and he did a fabulous job. Everyone had a great time (we'll see if anyone can walk 
today at church, it was quite the workout!). In Jason's usual fashion he asked to be paid with an ice sculpture, a gift basket, Andes mints, a lifetime supply of SlimJims, and a cornucopia of flowers. So...I froze water in a Pablo the Penguin cake mold for the sculpture, filled a basket with slim jims and a thing of tic tacs that said "Property of Andy", and printed a cornucopia that I filled with printed flowers stapled to green straws. It was awesome. Now I can get back to all the other things in my life I've neglected. Ryan has given me a budget to fix up the interior of the house. I think it will be fun (as soon as I find a friend who has some decorating skill). I'm also enjoying working on my Heritage Makers books. I'm currently working on a family history book for CJ's family, a life history of myself, and a poem book for my mom. I really love preserving history and taking cool photos and these books have been able to mix both of those loves for me. I'm also looking forward to having some time to do some family history work. I just finished a family CD of pictures for my dad's family and found the research and gathering a lot of fun!
Ryan - Ryan is working at John West Auto Racing and keeping up it's reputation for excellent
work. He basically runs the machine shop. At home his current project is the garden. To date he has it tilled, fertilized, and raked into mounds. Hopefully we'll get seeds in the ground in the next week or two. He's also been enjoying going shooting with friends. If there wasn't a drought right now I'm sure he'd be off in his boat fishing. He's also researching putting an addition on the house. Our little family has grown and we're out growing this house. We've gone looking for something bigger but the more we look the more I love our location and lot. Guess we'll just have to wait and see. Ryan has also been perfecting the art of pizza making and we're loving it!
Well, it's time for the little ones to get in the shower so I'm off to wake the troops. Have a happy Easter!!
