Things happening of late

Entertaining themselves while we were at a therapy session for Spencer. 

One of the first strawberries from our garden. We have so many growing. I'm excited for this summer.

Swinging before bed. Aaron loves to mimic whatever Genevieve does.

And a video of Aaron being Aaron. He is very definite about everything he does, to say the least. And we love to pester him. Ha!

Baptism Time

My beautiful niece Katrina got baptized this weekend and we grabbed the opportunity to make a quick trip up to the Philadelphia area to celebrate with them. None of the rest of my family lives on this side of the country. We figured we're never going to live closer to them than we do now. Whether that is true or not, off we went on a whirlwind trip. We woke up late by accident Friday, but still managed to get on the road by about 7:20am. It meant we drove through DC and Baltimore during rush hour, which wasn't exciting, but the kids were total rockstar travelers. Seriously, in the last few years we've mostly stopped taking trips because traveling was just so much work, but it seems we have moved past that stage. They did so, so well. We drove for 13 hours Friday and 12+ hours Monday coming back and we didn't turn a movie on until literally the last two hours both trips. They just read books and looked out the window and ate food and laughed and chattered and it was like night and day from previous trips. Amazing.

My sister's in-laws are delightful people who throw amazing parties. I've always wanted to go to one, and this weekend was my chance. They were kind enough to let us stay at their house for a couple nights, and we enjoyed a Paris-themed party complete with au pair to watch our kids in the basement and full spread Parisian meal, even a French waitress (my sister's MIL who served her mission in France, or at least part of it). It was incredible and so fun. We had a fun place to take pictures set up, the house was themed like a French market, with a flower booth and paintings booth and other such things.

The baptism was lovely. I accompanied a musical number that turned out nice. Katrina's aunt sang beautifully. Katrina's grandma, the one who threw the party, gave the best talk on the Holy Ghost I've ever heard. She used a comparison of the music from Peter and the Wolf as an object lesson. She played a piece of a number from it and told us she liked that part best because she loved the oboe. Well all the kids looked at her strangely of course and she said, what, you don't know what the oboe sounds like? Well then she played another piece with just oboe. Then she went back to the original piece and played it again and you could see lights go on in everyone's eyes all over the congregation as they recognized the instrument. She then compared that to recognizing the Holy Ghost. I've never seen people so riveted by a baptismal talk.

And now we're back and glad to be home, and I'm so happy we made the trip. It was worth it.

My wanderer

Don't be fooled by that innocent face. This kid wandered down across my neighbor's large yard, across the street, and over to the next house over to play with the girls he saw outside this afternoon while I was making lasagna for dinner and periodically checking outside to make sure the kids were good. All while the older two jumped on the trampoline. Though they were probably fighting, so maybe he was looking for more enjoyable playmates, lol. Our neighbor, who we haven't actually met because two doors down is kind of deceiving, the houses are way far apart, kindly brought him back after asking him where he lived. He was happy to show her. He's 21 months old.

Holy cow. This kid. He wants to walk into the stores now instead of being carried. He gets into his own carseat and gets really ticked if I clip his chest strap for him. He wants to put his own arms in and clip it. He's "reading" a Calvin and Hobbes book here. He climbs in and out of his high chair on his own. He can open all our doors. If he can't reach, he just gets a chair so he can. He finds his own food if we don't get him something to eat. The day he learns to open the fridge will be a day that goes down in history. I have thought on numerous occasions of late, huh, these three kids really keep me on my toes. Good thing I'm having another one in ten weeks!!! lololol.

But geez, I love this kid. He's imaginative and innovative and has the most amazing cheeky grin that splits his face in half. I just hope he survives the transition to middle child here in a bit okay and stays just like he is, because he's just the best and I don't want him to change at all. I just to figure out how to keep up with him.

Some random photos

Aaron still looks uncannily like his cousin Gracie. He put on one of Genevieve's shirts the other day and I snapped a picture to send to my picture telling her we stole Gracie. :)

After watching a Mickey Mouse short that talked about Turkish Delight, Bill made some for the kids. It looks totally beautiful here, but unfortunately it wasn't solid enough to cut and frankly it tasted a little weird. Fun experiment though. 

Annual Easter/conference Girls Scout cookie making day. Samoas.

Thin Mints. Worth every minute it takes to make them, which are a lot of minutes, so that's a good thing.

I've been cultivating a sourdough starter in my fridge for a month or so now, making something every couple weeks. This week I made these. They are delightful. It's a recipe from King Arthur flour. I basically just went to their recipes section, looked at sourdough, and picked a recipe that looked good. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing the same thing every couple months for a good while. They have so many recipes. So, so, so yummy.