At least it hasn't been three months...

Yup, still sucking at the blog thing. School's almost out and I'm hoping that helps. We'll see.

At any rate, here goes nothing. Catch-up might be a few posts long...

Birthdays. There are lots of them this time of year. Russell's (my nephew's) is on the 29th of March and then my dad's is April 1st, and then my niece's is the 2nd (but she lives in Cali, so we didn't get to celebrate with her), mine is the 4th, and my brother's is the 8th. Not to mention all the cousins and uncles interspersed throughout. My birthday was the best one I've had in a long time!! Maybe ever. I've kinda had not-so-amazing birthdays the last few years because it always comes around at the end of the semester when we are about out of money and finals are coming up so we're out of resources to invest in much of a birthday celebration. But this year, Brice made my birthday amazing!! He made me cinnamon pull-apart (what we call "ball-y coffee cake) for breakfast, and then he made me LOBSTER and crab legs for dinner!! It was fantastic! I was so impressed and mmmm, it was delicious! It was practically Red Lobster at home, complete with those cheesy rolls they have. My husband is an amazing chef! LOVE IT!

Then he somehow managed to get me a serger sewing machine! I've been wanting one for my diaper business to make the soakers and it's awesome! I've had so much fun with it and it sure is easier to make those soakers with the serger than to cut everything out and try to make sure the zig zag stitch catches all the layers. He's so good to me.

We also went to my parents house around my b-day and had a celebration with family. My dad and I had fun fighting over cups of milk (he made me laugh and I got some up my nose!) and blowing out candles and other dumb stuff.

The kids had a great time running and rolling down this huge hill at BYU.

Alaina thought it was so funny and she would pretend to fall and then roll the rest of the way. Gotta love the way she does her shoes too. We put them on her the right way, but as soon as she gets a chance, she undoes them, pulls the tongues out and redoes the velcro. She just likes 'em that way, with the tongues flopping all over the place. Funny girl.

If you ask Alaina to make a funny face, this is what you get.

This is the most recent diaper I made for Landon and I think it's my favorite. My business has been moving along slowly but surely. I've had pretty steady orders for the last little while. I love making diapers and talking to people about cloth diapering. It's always fun to get requests for fabrics I might not have thought to use and to see how they turn out!

I don't know why Alaina is putting a bucket on Russell's head and I didn't take this picture, but it's funny!

One morning, Raelin and Ryker surprised us with a breakfast creation. We came to the table to find this: toast, kiwi, orange frosting, blue frosting, and mango. They made up their own frosting recipe consisting of powdered sugar, granulated sugar, milk, and food coloring.

They instructed us to put the fruit on the toast and then pour the (rather runny) frosting over it. I was pretty skeptical, but it was actually not half bad!

I think a lot about how frustrated I get with a lot of their antics, but this one helped me to look at things in a different light. Instead of thinking about how much stuff they get into and how they just help themselves to so many things that aren't theirs to get into, I've also realized that (in part) because I don't (usually) freak out and ground them for life when they make messes and snatch food and all those other things that I always feel SO frustrated about but never know what to do about, they are really quite creative and self-confident. The invent wonderful games even though they make a big mess in the process. They are bold enough to invent a meal, again, making a big mess and using things I might not have wanted them to use. But if I scold and punish them for the mess making and being presumptuous, which is my instinct, I would stifle all this creativity and independence and that would be a tragedy. So I'm trying really hard to let go a little and see more of the good things that are happening instead of just the trouble their explorations cause. It's a work in progress because I hate how messy the house always is and I doubly hate how hard it is to get them to do an ounce of cleaning.