Yes, we did, in fact, fall off the face of the earth!

Ok, we didn't actually, but you were all thinking it! 

I have tons of pictures for today. But first a recap of the recent events for us. Brian is finished with going to classes. He will do his two online courses and an internship, and he will officially graduate in August. We have no idea where we are going at this point. We could move at any moment if he gets a job elsewhere. Its weird! It is very stressful for him right now looking for a job and/or an internship. If he finds a real job he will just use that as credit for his internship. 

Naomi just graduated from preschool today so there will be pictures of that to follow.  She is also teaching herself to write. She is right now asking me how to spell all of her friend's names. Gwen just learned to say help so she is constantly asking for help. She also started going down the really big twisty slide all by herself last week. 

I am busy collecting Visiting Teaching reports for April. I also really really want to plan a party for something. Don't know if I will give Brian a birthday party or hold off and throw him a big graduation party at some point. ??? I am also busy working on my Mother's Day gifts for my Mom and Brian's Mom. They are gonna be GOOOOD! And I am also sitting here staring at a spider crawl over the far wall from me. It is too high for me to reach, but I have to watch it to know where it goes. They are evil!! 

We are finally having Spring! Its nice out! We've also had quite a bit of rain (for Utah) so that is exciting to me! I am realizing that I LOVE the rain!  On another note I am feeling very very anxious about the Swine Flu stuff. I have logically told myself that it will most likely turn out to be nothing, but it is hard for me to tear my eyes away from the news reports making me feel like I should never leave the house again! And now the spider is crawling down into one of my plants!!! Argh!  Also, funnily(???did I make that up?) today the girls and I watched A Nightmare Before Christmas because I really wanted to. I realized that I just LOVE Halloween! Brian has told me that for years, but I never would admit how much until I was so desperate today for some Halloween exposure! 

Ok now for the pictures:

Gwen just randomly fell asleep on our bed without me knowing. It was just all of a sudden quiet.

From 2009

The girls sat on the edge of this chair to watch

a movie together.

From 2009

I purchased a clothes hamper to hold the girls' 

stuffed animals in but they got a kick out of 

playing in it for a few hours!

From 2009

From 2009

Sunshine Preschool Class of 2009!!

From 2009

Naomi with her girls, Emily and Maren.

From 2009

The Graduation March

From 2009

Such a pretty graduate!

From 2009

I got to hand out all of the diplomas, 

I also got to make them!

From 2009

April 15th and its snowing!! What a crazy place this is!

Easter

Easter Sunday completely got away from me. We have a nice dinner at a neighbor's house. I made a green bean casserole, a carrot cake, and a lemon cheesecake with blueberry topping. 

Because I ran out of time on Sunday I did our Easter egg hunt today. I also never got around to decorating Easter eggs so we did that today as well. Sadly, because I missed the Sunday hunting we did our Easter Egg hunt inside because its been rainy almost all day today. 

On the hunt:

I love this pic of Naomi!

From 2009

Gwen commanding me to pass her the eggs on the sofa as opposed to her climbing up to get them herself!

From 2009

From 2009

From 2009

From 2009

Drawing on the eggs with crayons

From 2009

First time in charge of dipping!!

From 2009

From 2009

Hard to see the decorations due to the flash, but each of us got one with our name on it!

From 2009

Randomly a few days ago, I look over to see Gwen doing this. She sure cracks me up! And will eat all day if allowed!

From 2009

Easter Dress pictures are to come. I want them outside in the nice weather which will come eventually!

To go with the 14 year old

This picture goes with the previous  post about Gwen throwing herself on her bed.

From 2009

About my teenage daughter

Apparently, Gwen is 14. She is obviously in her terrible 2 stage which, lucky for me, comes early for my girls and therefore disappears early. Anyway, she is very very temperamental (did you know there was an A in this word??) right now. Everyday, every (sometimes) couple of minutes she will get upset, slam something down or throw it, run out of the room crying down the hallway, slam her bedroom door shut, then throw herself onto the bed! She usually will stay there and cry until she has calmed down and will walk out all happy or until I go and get her. Its almost a game for her. I'm a little shocked! I didn't think I would have 14 year olds until another 10 years at least! Its so sad, its hilarious! Yesterday she was in her room crying so I decided to leave her for a minute to calm down. I realized a bit later that it was quiet. I went in to check and she was passed out asleep on the bed. I think a lot of this terrible 2's is that she is changing her sleep pattern and we haven't caught up with her yet. 

She just learned to say Yellow today. She can pretty much copy any word now. Her favorite word being Dog (daw-daw) which she screams about everytime she sees one even on TV. Yesterday she saw a Lion on TV.  Naomi said it was a dog because its roar sounded like a bark. Gwen said it was  a cat at about the same time. Brian didn't hear that and was explaining to Naomi that it was a lion. Gwen had a 14 year old fit because she thought he was telling her she was wrong about it being a cat. 

Some of her other words are:

shoes

ball

blanket(boo)

poo poo (bo bo)

butt

nose (no)

bowl (bow)

more (mo)

moo

Big P (beh peh)

book

go

Naomi (its sounds really weird though)

no

yeah

Quack, quack

da-da

Mom which she yells sometimes while going to be in various ways like Moooom, Maoooom, Mom! Mom! 

There are plenty more but those are some of the main ones.

She doesn't say chocolate milk, but if she hears the word she runs and grabs the chocolate mix and puts it on the table and waits.

A Possibility

I hate to even post this on here since there is absolutely no guarantee that it will go anywhere, but I thought it was exciting! Brian has been participating in his capstone project this entire year. They did their presentation on it today to show their progress, and the people from the company that is sponsoring them was actually there. They LOVED IT! Apparently there was some guy there talking about hiring them all right now! So that is, I think, exciting! It would be great if that turned out to be a job from a required class project, ya know? But I'm not getting my hopes up too high cuz you never know. Sadly, we would only get to move up to Salt Lake if that was the case. But I am pretty sure we'd take it! =o)

April Fool's Day Dinner

Don't you love our nice spread? Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a beautiful strawberry cream pie for dessert! Right?

From 2009

Nope! My strawberry cream pie is actually the 

meatloaf with mashed potatoes on top, the 

mashed potatoes is ice cream and the meatloaf 

a dark chocolate cake. Oh and the gravy is caramel 

sauce!

The sad part of it all - its sitting out and ready on the table, and Brian is not home 

yet!!