Six is Golden

We celebrated Braden's sixth birthday last weekend. Where have the years gone? I must be getting old, because I feel like I say that more and more. We were happy to have some extra visitors here to help us celebrate- Aunt Heather & Uncle Eric came down for the weekend. Mom isn't playing much basketball or running around on the beach these days, so it's extra exciting to have more people to play with.

Braden said he wanted angel food cake this year, with angels on it. It was pretty tasty, if I say so myself, and this fancy gold spray from Williams-Sonoma helped make it extra angelic! The trick candles I put on the top were maybe not so angelic, but awfully fun!

Easter

Last Easter I was terribly sick. So I feel like this was Fiona's first Easter, even though it really wasn't. We definitely downplay the secular elements of Easter, i.e. none of my kids think there is such a thing as the Easter Bunny. But once a year it's fun to have a little "treasure hunt" that results in deviled eggs for lunch. The kids and I got together with some friends to dye eggs on the Friday before. Yeah, I'm a traditionalist and I just can't stand to use those little plastic eggs. Besides, then how would you get those deviled eggs that we were talking about? I think we all had a good time watching Fiona try to find some of the eggs that I left out in the easy spots. Then I started to get a little worried as I couldn't remember exactly where all the other eggs had been hidden or exactly how many there had been. Pregnant brain!!! Fortunately, they found them all so we didn't have to bring in the egg sniffing hounds.

As always, we had a wonderful time worshiping with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We recognize that every Sunday- even every day- is a day to remember the sacrifice that Christ Jesus made. We are thankful for that sacrifice each day and praise God for his grace and mercy. Still, we like to make a special point to focus on that at Easter. I do apologize for not having a picture of the entire family on Easter- by the time I realized there was no place to put my camera it was too late to drag out the tripod. Maybe next year!

36 Weeks Down

I wanted to have a nice portrait during this pregnancy like I did last time. Generally, I find snapshots of myself pregnant to be mostly unflattering. But I enjoyed having these records of my last pregnancy. According to my file names, I was about 34 weeks there. I missed that deadline by about a week, and was closer to 35 weeks for these pictures. You wouldn't know it- I look more like 45 weeks! This little boy might not be so little when he comes out. While I was outside, with the tripod already set up, I thought it might also be fun to have some pictures with my baby girl. She didn't necessarily agree, although a few of them came out kind of sweet. The sweetest one I got, though, was with my camera phone when I caught her doing exactly what she had seen mommy do. Yeah, that's the sound of my heart melting!

We're not in AZ anymore, Toto!

It's been four months since my last post. It's a slight under statement to say that the blog has been neglected. It's really hard to catch up once you get behind! As it turns out, moving and getting settled gets a little trickier the more kids you have. Who knew? The good news is that we are getting settled. Finally. God blessed us with a wonderful home with plenty of room inside and out. The kids love having lots of space to roam about. We have found a wonderful church and we are making lots of friends there. We've been able to keep up with our schoolwork, despite all the traveling and breaks, and will be mostly finishing on time. We've already had some guests and look forward to hosting many more in the near future. I will try my best to keep up better in the future- I know everyone loves to see pics of new babies! For now, here are some things we've been enjoying the past few months. I think they can be summed up in a few words: trees, garden, winter and beach!