A better day...

I posted this yesterday on my families website, and thought I might as well post it for all to see...

Just as an update all is well. I didn't have to leave home even once today as one of the other mom's in Solace's class picked her up from home, took her to school, picked her up from school, fed her lunch, let her have a play date with her daughter and dropped her off late in the afternoon. I feel better today (and was more able to rest) than I have been in days!! Ender was actually an incredible help, and I think poor little Armour is getting used to his prison in our little town home. He finds ways to keep busy and have fun (and even manages not to be too messy). I read a whole book today while I was home with the boys as Ender helped me with Armour and was a fantastic big brother and helper. It was Twilight that Mel has been hounding me to read-I loved it and cannot wait to read the rest of the series, but Wes says I cannot get anymore books until I finish the one I was already in the middle of in my Wheel of Time series (by Robert Jordan). Speaking of Wes, he finished day one of testing today about an hour and a half early because he took no breaks (even for lunch) mainly because he forgot to bring food with him-whoops-usually I am the one that remembers that kind of stuff. He is now studying his last minute stuff for tomorrow's portions of the test. Overall, all is well and I think I have finally passed all the kidney stones and am now on the up and up (or so we hope)!

Thoughts from an invalid...

Well, I am amazed! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone that has helped us out this past week, and for all those that have offered to help and are helping us this coming week and just thank you all!! Especially shout outs to Shawn & Annie for taking my kids to school all last week, thanks to Carrie for the great dinner on Saturday, and thanks to Jessica for organizing dinners for us this week and for helping me so much with my kids so often! And of course thanks to mom for the great dinners she had sent over last week as well! Thank you!!!!!!!!


I have had a lot of time to lie around and think and just hang out and of course to watch March Madness. This has been a small blessing of this staying in bed thing-I have totally been able to just veg out and watch NCAA basketball all week. I always love March Madness! Wes told me the other day that is one of the things he loves, that I get so into March Madness. Seriously though, what is with all the upsets this year-seriously!! I will tell you this, after the first round, Armour was winning our family bracket game-how much skill can this actually take for a 20-month -old to be the winner?!


Another thought-I love having my kids at a different church for preschool. Mormons just don't do all this pre-Easter celebratory stuff. I loved that everyday last week my kids came home with another Holy Week activity they had done. Some were strange to me, but all made sense in their own way, and truthfully, they learned a lot about the true meaning of Easter. There was more talk about Jesus and his resurrection at our house last week than there was about the Easter Bunny. Here is everyone ready for Church (except mom/me who did not go to church)...



































That being said, the Easter Bunny did in fact make an appearance at our house, and the kids had a great time looking for eggs and finding these baskets full of goodies for them. It is always great to see your kids get so excited about something. It is also crazy to see Armour with so much readily available candy...he is truly a candy fiend...loves the sweet stuff...I kept hiding the baskets all day so he'd stop stuffing his face with sweets, and he kept finding them and shoving a ton of candy in his mouth before mom or dad even knew he had left the room-he had candy radar like no one I have ever met!!! It is insane...(you can see in the picture that Armour already has a sucker in his mouth...)





















Another big thing this week was match day. I have a great friend in Omaha whose husband was matching this year, so I was looking forward to seeing their match (as well as other friends as well). I really wanted my friends husband to match in Omaha of course so she would still be there, but I am happy to report that they got their first choice and are going to Texas A&M. So, congrats Dan and Tammy for that! I am sure you will love it! I actually was laying on the couch waiting for the kids to be picked up for school when I realized it was match day, and promptly turned on the computer to watch Creighton's live streaming video to see where people were going live. We turned it on just about 5 people before Dan went up (lucky!) And were able to all watch their whole family up there as they found out where they were going. My kids were so excited to see their kids on the computer! They still just love those friends so much and speak of them often. So, we got to see that right before the doorbell rang for the kids to leave-it was great timing! For me, all the memories and feelings of match day last year came back to me and I just sat at the computer and cried-I think this whole pregnancy emotion thing is highly amplified by the being stuck at home and in bed thing-I am crying again just typing about it! I never know what will set me off these days!


One more note on Easter...we got the movie Enchanted from the Easter Bunny (the one that lives in Utah) and watched it together as a family. It was the first time we had seen it...well, the first 3 times as the children loved it wand literally wanted to do nothing but watch it over and over all day yesterday. Don't think that is all we did though-we read books, played with our new toys, talked about Jesus, everyone but me went to church, and we had a great dinner yesterday. I want to talk about this dinner, but I first have to say that I do not know what to do with myself when everyone is gone. While they were at church I thought I would have this great opportunity to rest up and relax, and found I didn't know what to do with myself-I did relax but could not sleep...weird. Here we are watching Enchanted-Ender took the picture so he is missing...


















So, about this dinner, Wes and I made up a recipe based on an idea Wes got while he was at Wal Mart shopping on Saturday. He saw red peppers on sale and thought it would be awesome to make a twist on a traditional stuffed pepper. Usually for Easter I make a huge Greek Easter dinner with lamb (often I just cook roast as we like it better), green beans, orzo, blood red eggs, and bread. But this year that was not going to happen-plus Greek Easter is in 5 weeks and I can just do it then...hopefully...anyway. Wes was thinking of my traditional Greek Easter, and the idea of stuffed peppers and thought we could stuff them with a Greek chicken and rice style filling and have that with garlic bread and veggies. So that is what we did. We cooked Greek chicken with traditional flavors-lemon, oregano, garlic, onion, tomato paste/sauce. etc-overnight in the crock pot, shredded it in the morning and cooked rice. We added the rice to the shredded chicken still in its yummy juices in the crock pot, sauteed mushrooms, shredded carrots, chopped up spinach, and added it all into the crock pot mix, then we stuffed in into the peppers and baked them the oven for about an hour. It was incredible! I wish you could have all tried it! Doesn't it look good...
















One last thought from Solace...


Last night we decided to forgo our usual family Bible story to talk about Easter as a family and see what they had gotten out of everything. Solace really seemed to understand quite well and told us all about Jesus and his resurrection and how we can all be resurrected now because if him. She said that when we are all resurrected though, we will not be babies again-we can't ever be babies again. Then she said "Dad, how old will we be when we are resurrected?" Wes said, well, we won't be babies, and we won't be old, so I think somewhere in between." Solace said "Like, Maybe like you dad! I bet we'll be about as old as you." Wes said, "Ya know Solace-I think that is a good guess, maybe we will be about as old as me." Then Solace said "Yeah-but definitely NOT old like mom!" She said it with such authority and complete sincerity that Wes And I had a hard time stifling our laughter-evidently the line between young and old falls somewhere between 28 and 29...

Well, as a brief update to those wondering, I have been on bed rest because I have had kidney stones and they have been causing contractions. I seem to be dilated to about a 1 last I was checked, so obviously we do not want that to continue at 31 weeks. The hope is that once all the stones pass It will be better as far as the contractions and the pain. So, hopefully by my next appointment on the 31st (one week from today) all stones will be gone (I have passed 3-I know too much info...) and I will not have to be so limited in my activity. We just need to get though this week. Wesley has his boards on Thursday and Friday, so that is the biggest event coming up, and we are doing our best to let him study while I rest and the kids take care of me. It has been working out well, and I know Wesley will do well on his boards! Thank you again for everything-and hey-if you made it to the end of this-thanks for caring!!