The First Edition

I think we are ready to enter the world of the bloggers. Maybe this will help keep me more up to date than my e-mail version has been!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mother's out there! I think I overslept about an hour and a half this morning...or at least stayed in bed WAITING for my surprise! Joslyn and Drew cooked me their first omelet this morning (although it was taking a while and so they brought me an appetizer of toast), then they brought in a boiled egg as a second course. They all had fun presents for me and then we scrambled to get ready to get to church on time. In primary the kids filled out questionnaires about their moms and apparently I like to clean (WHATEVER!!!!!!!), and I am sad when the kids don't clean (hmmm could be some truth in that one).

Yesterday we worked on our back yard. We are moving our garden and putting up a little retainer wall around it. In the process of going in and out of the back yard we leashed up Sadie (the dog) and were in the front yard when her "best friend" Scooby Doo (a great dane) who lives next door came in the front yard as well and came galloping over to our yard and attacked Sadie. She was scalped on a little spot, but looked good otherwise and today we're hoping that she's just sore and doesn't have worse internal injuries. Poor puppy! We've never had so many birds in our yard before...they aren't afraid of the dog anymore!


Joslyn had her first tap recital yesterday at a Cinco de Mayo celebration here in town. She really loves dance right now. Drew used to do it, but decided it wasn't as much fun as she thought it would be. Ellie is going to start going this week...she turns 4 on Saturday and that is how old they need to be for classes. She's been wearing her tap shoes all the time and wondering if she can wear them out shopping and everything.

We got a butterfly habitat for Christmas and just sent away for our catepillars. They finally came and grew so fast it was amazing! They are almost all out of their chrysalides now. This is Ellie's first experience with the whole catepillar/butterfly world. After we had them for about a week she went and looked at them and exclaimed, "they are all in packages!!!" Funny story two: Ellie keeps wanting to have curly hair like me, finally one day she said, "Mom, you need to get your haircut. And tell her you want it flat like me." (Don't I WISH I could?!!)

Lately Ellie has been in the "let's play house" stage...I'm usually the maid who has to fold all of the clothes and do all of the cleaning (I don't think anyone would pay me to be their maid because it is never finished!) Chloe is in the "let's get into everything and climb onto everything" stage. As soon as you leave your chair she is on a baby-run to get there before you realize what you've done. We often hear the "beep" of the computer as she climbs up and pretends to be all grown-up typing on the computer. Chloe is so frightened of people that if you are in public and put her down she stands there frozen like a shadow. And if you are across the room and there are people between us she won't come to me because she has to walk by THEM!

Austin joined track this year at school and has enjoyed it a bit. He starts high school next year and I wanted him to try it out before he went to a more competitive market. He's also starting work on a bicycling merit badge in boy scouts and is riding his bike a lot...I think he'll be riding it to school for the rest of the year.

Scott has been very busy with the end of school. He'll be glad when finals are over and the final grades are all turned in! Then of course he'll go immediately on a trip. I'm anxious to see what our first academic summer is like! Will he REALLY be around more?!

I have been swamped with sick kids since January...it has been a very bad winter here for everyone! Drew topped out our family with a fever of 106, with Chloe coming in a close second at 105.2. I won't even go into it...but we've had it ALL!

Here's to another eventful week!
Love, Scott, Julie, Austin, Joslyn, Drew, Ellie & Chloe