Hey Beautiful!

Zach was recently commenting that I don't have enough pictures of Gwen on the blog and he's right. You'd think I hardly pay her any attention. The reality is that she's getting so much attention that I have less time to blog than I used to. She's a sweetie and lots of fun. Right now, unfortunately, I think she's just started teething which means lots of fussiness. Oh well, tis the life I suppose. Everyone always comments on how much she looks like her brother, which I actually think is a compliment. She's not quite as chubby as Lincoln was-but she certainly doesn't look like she lacks any nutrition. She's getting pretty close to rolling over-everyday I think she's going to do it. She gets so close and gets so frustrated because her arm gets in the way. One of these days she'll figure it out.

Easter-finally

I know- I know Easter was nearly 2 weeks ago- but I like to make blog books so I have to have this piece of family history in it.

Easter morning Gwen woke us up at about 7:00am and was uncharacteristically screaming. We decided that since it was Easter we ought to get up anyway (maybe she knew what day it was) and *ahem* get ready for the Easter bunny.
Lincoln woke up shortly after that, since his sister was kind enough to wake him and ran into our room. That was the first time he had done that because he usually would wake up and stay on his bed, calling for us to come get him. We figured he just hadn't figured out that he could now get down on his own-but Easter was the day for him to figure that out. It was almost like the air was charged with excitement even though neither of our kids really knew that anything was different today.
We let Lincoln find several eggs outside-which I soon had to switch with empty ones- I couldn't have him going to church too wired. Lincoln also got an anonymous gift from a different Easter bunny which was left on our porch. There are so many generous people out there,and I suspect, in our ward.

Then after church we went out to my parents to have dinner with the whole family and let the kids find more Easter eggs. Lincoln discovered Peeps at this egg hunt and thankfully only ate one. Everyone was there except Rick and Janae- 5 more years for them and hopefully they'll be back on the West coast. However, we did get to see some of our Corbridge cousins.



It was another beautiful day and as always a wonderful thing to be able to spend time with family.

General Conference Weekend

We decided to stick around town this time around rather than rush off anywhere for General Conference and it was a pretty comfortable weekend as a result! We first took Lincoln to the annual Easter Egg hunt in BC, but were about 10 seconds too late(I guess the preschoolers jumped the gun and started their hunt before it was time- but what can you do?--They're preschoolers. We were running to the area when the pandemonium broke out and Lincoln didn't get anything from that area. But, Zach took him over to the bigger kids area and let him scavenge behind them. He ended up getting a half of a plastic egg and a life-saver candy. It was just the right amount of candy-I think.
Then we enjoyed listening to Conference at my parents with a couple of croquet games being played between sessions. The weather was gorgeous, the company was great and the messages were memorable and uplifting- what more could you ask for?!

Poor Tortoise

Spa(that's his name-thanks to Lincoln) is quite the enduring tortoise. First, we lost him in our backyard and ended up leaving him outside all winter. He miraculously survived the cold without being able to burrow underground. Now, the weather is warmer and I've been trying get Lincoln involved in feeding and watering him every so often. Lincoln has actually been doing really well with those tasks.

Well, on Tuesday Lincoln finished his lunch outside so I offered to let him have a half of one of our left-over FHE treats from the night before. I gave it to him and turned to do something else. He came back to me empty-handed about 30 seconds later and I thought to myself gee-that kid can eat fast when he likes something. I then gave him the other half and noticed that he ate this one A LOT slower. Later on after I had put him down for his nap, I went out to water my garden and noticed the tortoise was out and actually moving pretty quickly. He had something smeared all over his face but I couldn't tell what- that is until I looked just behind him and saw melting chocolate on the ground and half of the cookie bar I had given Lincoln. I suppose Lincoln had decided to share his treat with Spa and now Spa was a little wired. I was a little worried that Spa would die because of his dose of chocolate otherwise I would have posted sooner, but I decided to wait a few days and make sure he survived before I posted. Phew!

P.S. if you look closely you can see the darkened chocolate stain on his face.