Lots of Pink!

We thought it was about time to share our big news since I can't hide it much longer. We are expecting ANOTHER girl. Yep. That is right. I am pregnant and due on March 5th. I am 18 weeks along, and we found out last week it is a girl. I was a bit disappointed at first but am excited now and it will be fine that we will have 4 girls. Brian was excited from the beginning. We told Eliza and Libby today and Eliza is sad that it isn't a boy. She said, "I love boys when they are little." She is excited though, and Libby couldn't really care less one way or the other. We just hope this baby is as great as Ellie. If she is, then I think I will survive!

In other news, my board "meeting"/party went well tonight. The food was great, the meeting part went well (although the husbands slacked in their duty of cleaning up dinner) and the games were a hoot and a lot of fun. I am just thrilled it is over. Now I can breathe a little easier.

Finally, Eliza and Libby love the show Big Comfy Couch that is on channel 8. They really love that show and have started acting out the show. For the past couple of days, they have had me tape them on our couch doing the show. Wow--they have a lot of that show memorized. It is very cute. I've attached pictures of them on the "couch."

One to Go

I forgot to mention the "One to Go". Someone commented that she wanted to see what I'm doing for the board meeting, so I took some pictures. Hopefully no one who is going to be there reads my blog so I don't ruin the surprises. Heck, I think only about five people read my blog, so we are okay!

My theme is "Back to School" and the invitations were done on a library card in a library pocket decorated very simply. Tomorrow night we are going to start with a dinner that is "school-ish." We are having sloppy joes (very homemade, thanks to my sister-in-law!), on homemade buns, with french fries, vegetable, capri suns, all in tray-like plates. At the end we are having dessert which will be little ice cream cups and brownies. After we eat dinner, the husbands are going to clean up and the leaders (wives) will have the "meeting" part of the night. For that I made little pocket portfolios with handouts/notes in them. I used Carol Wingert's concept from the Creative Escape class (thanks Carol!) and folded those cheap pocket folders from Target and wallpapered them with paper. I printed off the notes, folded them in half lengthwise and stuck them in. We are going to talk about four different "subjects": math (lost sheep--one and 99; budget, etc), English (reading scriptures, handbook, nouns: us, Young women, etc), science (experiment upon the word) and social studies (working the crowd at mutual and at church, not letting any girl feel alone or left out, etc). After our meeting we are going to play some getting-to-know you games with the spouses and we'll have dessert. As a favor, I covered the fronts of composition books to give to each leader.

Over the top? Probably. Fun to do and think about? For the most part. (Thanks Mom or the ideas) No, it was fun, but I will be glad when tomorrow night is over! I might be able to think a little straighter. ...Except that I have a huge writing deadline for Autumn Leaves for another book. I have to send all the projects back on Tuesday, so I will be writing furiously in every spare moment!

One Down, One to Go!

Young Women in Excellence was last night and it went pretty well. I hope the parents thought it did. The room looked great and so did the red carpet the girls walked in on. Everything went smoothly though and it was just a fun night for the girls to share what projects they had been working on. I included a picture of the room and one of the red carpet (with Kayleen--my awesome Laurel president--striking a pose!).

Artists in Residence

I had this post all typed out and was uploading it, when something happened and, whoosh--it was gone. So here is the Reader's Digest version.

--After much begging, Libby and Eliza got to make a little project using my stickers, paper and rubbings that I used on the stuff I am doing for my "meeting" for the young women leaders. For the past couple of days, they used their stickers and paper, but, of course, they wanted to use what I was using. So they got their wish and had a blast as you can tell from the pictures. Libby LOVES to use the brayer. She helps me out with that anytime I need to glue something down. She is there with the brayer going right over the top of it!

--Today was a whirlwind day:
-went visiting teaching
-bug man came and sprayed (hope we have less crickets!)
-picked up a new set of mailbox keys (lost ours)
-went to a school book fair where my mom was volunteering and the girls each picked out a book
-went to Sunrise Mountain and watched my cousin Katelin and our babysitter Sarah play in their volleyball games. They both won!
-trying to psyche myself up for another whirlwind day tomorrow!

Turning A Corner?

For the past several days, Eliza has been such a great, sweet girl. I am hoping we are turning a corner. Not that she was "bad" before, but she would definitely have her moments of slight defiance and also being mean to Libby. But lately, she has been so accommodating and helpful to me and very kind and helpful with Libby. It has been great. Who knows how long it will last, but I am going to enjoy it while it lasts. And when Eliza acts like that, Libby is so much easier and better behaved as well. It has been great.

Yesterday was the Primary program at church. Eliza did her part perfectly! I was nervous that she would get nervous and not do it, but she went up with her class and said her line. Her cousin, Abby, said her line, too, then as she was getting off the stand, she did a "hee hee hee" laugh. It was so funny. Today Eliza even said it was fun doing that. Tonight we are going out for ice cream to celebrate her bravery (really it was a bribe).

A couple times last week, I have enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate. I love that the weather is finally cooling down and fall decorations are in the stores. It puts me in the hot cocoa mood! ...not to mention that the girls have had me put on kids' Christmas songs. I love it!

This is a big/busy week. On Wednesday, we are having our Young Women in Excellence for the girls. And on Friday is the YW board meeting I have been planning and working on for the past month. I hope the ladies enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed doing it.

Happy Monday. And I had to include a cute picture of Ellie. On Saturday, she donned her first ponytail!

Sappiness

Do you ever look at your kids and wonder what they will be like when they are teenagers? Or spend part of your date night talking about what they will be like when they are older? Well, we do. We just wonder what their personalities will be like and what they will do for extracurricular activities, what trials they will give us, what happiness they will bring, etc. We think Libby will be a natural at anything she tries and also not afraid to try anything. She is just happy-go-lucky about everything and good at everything she tries. We think Eliza will also be good at what she does, but she will have to work at it a little more since she is quite the perfectionist. I think she will make a great nurse because she is so empathetic and helpful to people who are hurt or sick. And Ellie...well, it's hard to tell. I think she'll just cheer everyone on and be happy for everyone in whatever they do. Sappy, I know, but sometimes when I look at my girls that is what crosses my mind. I hope I am doing a good job so they are nice young women and do the right thing.

Today we booked our tickets for the Polar Express. They were all booked for overnight packages on the weekends, so we are doing a weekday, but it still will be a ton of fun. Although I am a little nervous about taking Libby. I mentioned something about it tonight and she cried and said she didn't want to ride a train or be cold. Here is Disneyworld all over again. I hope she can get some courage before December!

Family Haircut Night

Last night we went to Lindsay, my hair girl, and I got a hair cut and so did Eliza and Libby. This was Libby's first haircut ever! I posted a before (white shirt) and after picture. We kept it long, but she just evened it up a bit. And Eliza just got a trim. I even had to talk her into that. She was afraid if she got it cut she couldn't have long hair. But she was excited to get the "dead part" trimmed off. And I got some way-blonder highlights than I was expecting. I knew she was going to do some blonde since we both thought it looked good, but it is very blonde! I got home last night and Brian said, "Hi blondie." He likes it, but you can definitely see a difference.

Sorry for the quick post, but we are off on our date night.

Catching Up

I've been slacking on my posts here, so here I'll attempt to catch up on what has been going on.

Eliza started preschool last week and is enjoying it. She loves to make new friends and tells me every time I pick her up who she made a friend with. On her first day, she said she was just a little nervous and then said, "I think my heart is doing jump rope in there." I think we have another writer on our hands! I also think she will be a budding photographer. Yesterday she got the camera and said she wanted to take a picture of Libby. So as I was going to rescue the camera, I saw that Eliza had set up a backdrop in front of the window...it was her little studio. (I took a picture that I included here).

Libby has been well...Libby. Active, all over Ellie, cute, sweet, etc. She is just fun to have around. As much as Libby is all over Ellie, Ellie really loves to play with her and get chased by Libby.

Ellie is still crawling around everywhere and pulling herself up. She hasn't attempted any steps yet, so we'll just wait and see. She did get a fat lip yesterday (notice the picture). I was gone doing some young women stuff, so a babysitter was here, but apparently she was crawling and must have gotten ahead of herself and bonked her face, putting her teeth into her lip. So sad! I feels sorry just looking at her!

Brian is busy with work and working out. He has been going faithfully every weekday morning to either swim laps or to the gym at the resort across the street. I am proud of him for keeping at it!

And I am trying to keep my head above water! ha ha. A couple of books that I've worked on finally came out and I got my copies. My favorite though is Quote, Unquote Vol. 4. It's the one full of lines from movies. The other book is Designing With Color. There are three other books in the works now, so that is keeping me writing away. Other than that, I have been busy with Young Women stuff, such as invitations for Young Women in Excellence and for the YW Board Meeting we are having at the end of the month. I am excited about that one. It is going to be a back-to-school theme, and I have a lot of fun stuff milling around in my head. I hope I can do it all or at least most of it!

Let's see...what else. Oh yes...Creative Escape. We had a great time at this event. There were lots of special little things that we got like bubble bath and pink popcorn in our rooms at the end of the day, specially decorated room key, CE flip flops, lots and lots of free stuff and some great projects. I loved hearing Allison's photo class again and being reminded of what I need to do when taking pictures. She got me excited to do more with photography. The best part of the whole weekend though was just hanging out with friends. We had a group of about 8 of us who were in the same group and ate our meals together, etc. It was great and just a fun time to be away and relaxing. (I actually did get to relax during the meals!).

And I am so excited that it is finally cooling down in the evening. Last night we went out front with the girls while they rode bikes and played with the other girls in the neighborhood. I think Libby and Eliza liked riding in those little Jeeps that kids can drive. Eliza took a turn at driving and let's just say I'm glad we have a few years before she will drive a real car. But it nice to be outside, enjoying the weather and seeing the kids play.

That's all for now!

No Life and a Tuesday Funny

An update from the weekend: we went to game night, but I didn't take Life. Eliza decided to--right before we left--get out the game and strew the pieces all over the playroom, so I wasn't about to clean it up and take it. It worked out okay, because we stayed busy playing Apples to Apples, Spoons and Scattergories.

Today at Wal-Mart, Eliza pointed up high and said, "Look! It's a two-headed bike." I looked up and saw a tandem bike. I guess her name was appropriate--and funny!

One day and counting until Creative Escape! I am looking forward to it, although I'm not sure how much relaxing I will do. Eliza drew me a picture today, gave it to me and said, "I don't want you to forget me while you are gone on your trip." Sad.

This morning I watched High School Musical for the first time. Yes, it's a teeny-bopper type flick, but I loved it. I have been singing the songs all day. I think I will watch it again soon. (That is great for me considering how much I love movies!)
Off to bed..it's been a long day!