Remember this?

Well, this cute little head is changed now. A wicked witch attacked him and stole all his curls. Poor little guy! He's almost bald, and less than happy with it.

Easter fun

Myles was the first one out the door, to hunt for eggs. It took him a while to get the whole egg thing. He was much more excited about seeing the dogs, and headed straight for the backyard gate ;)
Morgen and Walker searched high and low- mostly high [because they could see the eggs in the tree from our kitchen window], to find all the eggs the Easter Bunny hid.
Hyrum had some big hints from his dad, but he found a lot of eggs on his own, too.
Morgen finally got Myles' attention, and offered him an egg from her basket. He grabbed it, and carried it around with him while the rest of the kids finished looking for the eggs. When I took it away from him, he screamed. He's really into the 'once I hold it, it belongs to me forever' philosophy. :)But a quick application of Easter candy dried those tears right up!
Morgen colored and drew and dyed her eggs to look like dragon eggs [more on this theme below]. She dipped and mixed and created happily.
"Mmmm! This smells like food!" Then, to Walker, "Hey, smell this!" Walker thought it smelled nasty [vinegar in the dye]. But Hyrum put it back to his nose and sniffed again. "Mmmmm."
The eggs, the dye, and Walker singing some loud dragon song to Morgen. :)Because what would Easter be without dragons?!?

Tagged, again.

Okay, so I like everybody who tags me, but this is my last tagging blog. Unless, of course, *I* decide to do it on my own.
So, while there are 'rules' for the tag, I am not posting them, and I am not tagging others. Too much like chain letters/emails. Which, BTW, I usually delete without forwarding, although lately I've been checking Snopes.com before I do, just to see how wrong some of the info is...

Now for the tag: 7 random facts about myself.

1. I just dyed my hair after a 4-year break. I was traumatized by my last experience: I got cool blonde and straw-berry red streaks done, then a week later everything but the blonde faded out because of pregnancy hormones. Now that I am completely finished w/having kids [unless there's Divine Intervention], I feel safe trying this again.

2. Brown streaks, mostly, with a few fire-engine red ones, just to mix things up.

3. One of my goals this week is to completely finish a blanket for a church project; and I'm procrastinating it because I have kind of a bad attitude about the whole thing.

4. My youngest son Myles can climb out of the tub. :) And, since I leave the door open [because I'm usually watching him as well as the 3 other kids] he just walks out of the bathroom, dripping wet, and toddles his little naked self down the hall!

5. I love cooking, as long as nobody is helping me. This is never my first choice for spending time with other people.

6. I'm so completely fed up w/my elementary school's low expectations that I am seriously considering home-schooling my children. And I'll socialize them myself, thank you very much.

7. I also love to garden, again alone. Or maybe, I just love being alone. It happens so rarely in my life...

Snow!

Oh, not that it surprises me, but it snowed yesterday. Lots of beautiful, cold, flaky goodness just poured from the sky. I met some friends at a scrapbook store for a crop, and the snow started on my way over. Oddly enough, when I flew to Iowa to scrap with friends, it snowed too. Coincidence? I think not!!!

I did finish almost 7 pages, though. The pics are down, but the journaling needs to be added. That's my goal this week *wink*. Along with finishing the back of a vest I'm knitting, decluttering my dresser [baby steps, dear, baby steps], and finishing a fleece blanket for a church project. Oh, and hemming a dress, and keeping up w/the daily cleaning, and raking out the flower beds, and planning our garden, and making dinner every day, and exercising, and ...

Phew, I think I need a vacation.

Movie quote

I rented, for reasons I forgot [since I put it in my queue for netflix a month ago], the movie "Akeelah and the Bee" for my kids to watch. Wow. Pretty powerful message, and my favorite thing was a quote Akeelah's coach had her read. I even stopped the movie to copy the quote, then went online to find out who said it :).

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
–Marianne Williamson

Wow.

Lessons learned

Well today was interesting. I'm used to having daylight savings time the first week in April and the first week in October. Actually, I would rather not have it at all... but I digress. So, yesterday, in preparation for his 0-dark-thirty flight to Arkansas [I know, Dugway and Arkansas- how lucky can a guy get?], Jared was programming his phones for either 4:30am or 3:30am, so he'd for sure make it to the airport on time. Basically, that meant we had an alarm sound at 3:30am, and 2 at 4:30am this morning. Blech! It is impossible, no matter *how* you stretch or twist the words, to define me as a morning person. I simply do not function as a nice polite and friendly being until after 10am. Even with caffiene added :). But it all balances out- I can stay up till 2am easily, and most of my best creations [term papers, LOs, whatever] come to me after midnight. Anyway, it's a good thing Jared's parents are visiting, and took pity and stayed a day longer. Otherwise the entire church congregation would have witnessed a horrible quadruple homicide.
He had a nap, I had a meeting after church [adults only and we got something done besides talking], and my kids had some great grandparent time. Equilibrium has been restored at our house.

And, while waiting for said meeting, I ran across this cool quote in the children's magazine my church publishes [warning, link is to overtly religious stuff ;) so I put the quote below and you can ignore the link if you want]

“None of us need one more person... pointing out where we have failed or fallen short... what each of us does need is family... who believe in us, and who believe we’re trying to do the best we can.” --Elder Marvin J. Ashton of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1915–94)

I really needed that reminder today. My kids are *not* out to get me, and my dh is *not* trying to ruin my life. Even if, today, it felt like it!

And a picture from last week's trip to the rock beds:

How's that for a do-it-yourself tonsillectomy?!?

He actually spent all day poking the dirt with this screwdriver. Mostly I kept it out of his mouth, but I was obviously not completely successful ;)

p.s. I finished...

1776 by John McCullough. Excellent read, and I highly recommend it! Now on to John Adams.

A Day in the Life...

When Myles was born, Jared and I had an interesting conversation about ricin poison, that I documented here:

:) Over the weekend, Jared's unit got to work with the FBI in response to a ricin poison find right here in Utah. I was hoping he'd never have to use those skills he works so hard to hone. Ah, well, all in a day's work, eh? I do sleep easier knowing that his team is on call for these situations. I just wish it wasn't necessary; however naive that makes me.