Random happenings from last week.

We had a fun filled week and did lots of activities because the weather was so nice. It sure made the week go by fast with all of the fun things we did.

I was doing laundry and then got to chatting on the phone with Kira and Kenya decided to help, which is nothing new, but then she began to put the clothes on. This was what she ended up with. I asked her several times if she wanted help getting her PJs off and she said no. Everything is on backward and the first time the shorts were on inside out too. Notice her sandals on over her footed jammies.


One morning Kenya just asked me to take a picture of her and Daddy. Here it is. SO CUTE!!
This was Kenya and my first picnic of the year. Windy, but so loved it!
This is the end of the same day. We made cupcakes for Family Home Evening and she got to help and love it!
Tuesday we went to Rexburg for a dentist and doctors appointment and then had lunch with Jena. Kenya loves visiting her! Sorry, no exciting pictures from then.

Thursday we had lunch with Daddy on the Green Belt and played with the geese and then went to the zoo with 4 other moms and kids. Here is Kenya walking with her friends. She loves having friends.
Friday we went to the Hildebrandt's house and play outside in the backyard and in Hannah's pool. These girls had so much fun! They played in the sun and pool for over 3 hours. Kenya has sun block on, but at the end of the day her face was a little burnt. I got some sun as well of course. That water was cold! I think it was only like 75 degrees at the most! This first picture is Kenya's reaction to the cold water! Oh so cute!



Last night I made lobster tails for dinner. It was yummy. This was my first time and if lobster comes on sale again like it did, I will for sure make it again.

Kite Festival 2011

Saturday, April 30,we went to the annual kite festival for the area. The first 30 minutes almost convinced to leave prematurely because there was no wind! We were feeling cheated (even though it was free or donation), eventually the wind did pick up and we had a good time watching kites of all shapes, sizes, colors, and characters dance in the air. We were treated to free hot dogs, soda, music, kite making, and ways to win prizes.

Kenya got a pinwheel, for the cause of stomping out child abuse, during a race to grab a pinwheel. The kids were to line up and at the drop of a man's hat run as fast as they could to get a pinwheel. Well, I, Robert, explained to Kenya what to do and when to go and showed her understanding by repeating what she needed to do. So once the hat dropped, instead of taking off in a sprint for the pinwheels she was so concerned about the man dropping his hat that she almost came in dead last out of at least 50 kids, many of which were smaller and younger than her. But her caring nature shone brightly. Even after she got a pinwheel she continued to worry about the man dropping his hat!


The next few pics are of Kenya flying a kite for the first time. We learned how to make it from some very helpful Boy Scouts.




When we first got there, since there wasn't any wind, Kenya went and played in the inflatable play palace. She enjoyed sliding down the entrance and bouncing on the inside.

Father's Day Weekend 2011 a Memorial for Daddy!

This is for those of you who do not have the blog address to our Pig Fest page and that might be interested in coming. For more updates and things to come on refer to the Pig Fest blog.

http://evanspigfest.blogspot.com/

Details are still very scares, but my mom has decided that Father's Day weekend is when she is going to do the memorial for my dad.
As far as I understand it, the celebrating is going to be a very much like our other Pig Fests, but without the pig in the ground. (This still might be undecided, I am not sure.) SO, bring things for camping, swimming in the creek, hiking, fishing, and having all kinds of good food and fun!
We are hoping that everyone who wants to come will come! There is not going to be a specific invite set out, so consider yourself invited.
The week before Memorial Day she is going to be traveling back from CT with Kira by car (it will take a few days). She said that she will need time to rest and prepare for the company and activities.

Lets make this the BEST one ever and try to get everyone to attend!!

Thoughts on the Latest World Event

Last night I received a text message from my sister telling me that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US forces. Of course the first thing I did was to "google" it. Sure enough many confirmed tid-bits on the matter, but no real details. Then within 30 minutes President Obama spoke on the matter live from the White House and confirmed the news with details. My reaction...
Well I know it is a good thing that he is dead. We can learn from the Book of Mormon that is better that one man die than so many others. Is this something to rejoice over? I do not feel so. Yes, we should be proud of our country and what we have accomplished, but we should not celebrate the dead of any person. (True I did not personally loose someone as a direct effect of his planned terror attacks and maybe I would think differently if I had. I hope not.) After the briefing from the president last night the news showed a crowd gathered outside the white house who were celebrating like it was the winning of a sporting event. This also makes me think of something in the Book of Mormon. People became so wicked that they delighted in the shedding of blood. I am glad to see that as I surfed the web today looking for more news and updated information and details that the topic of many major news stations had headlines leading to the same question I had about rejoicing or celebrating over his death. As I was reading on facebook this morning a friend of mine made a posted that I very much agreed with. It was by Joey Franklin,
"Is slightly embarrassed by the frantic crowds gathered at the white house and cheering over Bin Laden's death like drunk NFL fans on a Sunday night. Yes, I'm glad he's gone. But it seems like mourning our own dead, and praying for peace is more appropriate than "USA" chants and raised fists. God Bless all nations and may He keep innocent people out of harms way."
He then added the quote of Alma 48:11 "And Moroni was a ^astrong and a mighty man; he was a man of a perfect ^bunderstanding; yea, a man that did not delight in bloodshed; a man whose soul did joy in the liberty and the freedom of his country, and his brethren from bondage and slavery"
This fits exactly how I feel. Thanks for putting it into words for me!'

Another thought that I had was, "Wow, our intelligence agencies CAN keep a secrete." This was even before Obama announced that this mission had been in the works for 8 months. With all of the negative press and such that our government gets sometimes I begin to think that there is no one in our government or agencies that can be trusted. Well, there were no leaks in this operation and had there been it would not have been possible. I know that really there is so much that we do not know about, but there is also so much that is lost and so many complication because people cannot keep their mouths shut.

So, there you have it. A little look into what I have been thinking about about and how I have been feeling.

Name Game

So, Robert and I are pretty sure that we are going to be naming "Baby Inside" with the same initials as my father. DJE. We have the D obviously and several ideas for the J for both boy and girl, but the E is giving us trouble. We could use any help finding some great names for both genders. Please leave a post or email me and share some!

Busy Easter 2011

We had a crazy Saturday filled with a ton of fun! Then on Sunday church and one tired Kenya, but still fun!
So, on Saturday we went to an egg hunt at the park in Idaho Falls. We met up with some friends. Kenya loved it. While waiting for the hunt to start Kenya walked around trying to find all to dogs so that she could pet them. At the hunt they had age groups 0-2 years, 3-4 years, and so on. Well the 0-2 years group was suppose to stand in line and get 1 egg from the Easter Bunny. Yeah, right! We put her in with the 3-4 year old group. She did just fine!
This is Kenya's friend Hannah. Who we spend the first half of the day with.


She got 5 eggs and a little boy even gave her 1 of his eggs. I think he was hitting on her. All the eggs were just on the ground and when they said to start everyone just ran into it. Kenya even ran out on her own. Here she is getting her 1 egg from the bunny. She said "hi" and "Happy Easter!" to him. Oh and of course, "Thank you!" What a big girl we have!

Next we went to the zoo with our friends. We had a lot of fun there! Kenya LOVES animals and so we just bought a season pass. I am sure are you going to hear many more stories about the zoo this summer. They have goats and sheep that you can pet. Kenya notice right away that some of them have horns and some did not, so the entire time we were in there petting she was telling me which ones had horns. She notices EVERYTHING!
She wanted to sit on the lion and then she gave it a love. So, cute! While looking at the real lions she was roaring at them. Every time she did the male lion would look at her. It was fun to see the lion respond to her.

She asked mommy to get on the tiger with her. Then we both gave Daddy a BIG ROAR!
We went to lunch with our friends too. Then when we got home it was nap time. After being rested we dyed eggs. This was a hit and Kenya did really well! She didn't ruin or spill any of the dyes. We wrote on the eggs with white color crayon and while she was writing she kept telling me that it was not working. Then when we pulled them out of the dye she understood.







We boiled 9 eggs to have three a pieces, but we had one casualty before the dying began. Kenya dropped the first one she picked up, but then was careful with the rest. Here is our final products.

After dying eggs we went to a "semi-pro" football game. Kenya didn't freeze too bad and we even stayed for the whole game. So, she went to bed at like 11:30 that night.
Easter morning she woke up to a small basket by her bed. She knew that all the eggs would be hidden in the house and that she would be able to go looking for them when she woke up so, that is all that she focused on from the moment she woke up. Yes, we have played "hide the eggs," several times since then.



Kenya loves to count! She counts her eggs over and over again. She had 29 eggs that she found (including the 8 real eggs). She counted almost all the way to 20 by herself.

Kenya was already minus 3 hours of sleep from the night before, but then when we tried to give her a nap the neighbors were so noise that he nap was only 10 minutes. Poor girl, she was SOOO tired ALL day long.
Here I am right before church. I am already larger than I was with Kenya at 9 months.
This is Kenya in all of the Easter stuff I made her. I made her a dress, a purse, and matching hair bows. She loved it! I love it too! It all turned out so cute, especially on her.
These are pictures that Robert snapped as they were playing right before church.



And of course Kenya helped make Easter dinner. We made scalloped potatoes and super yummy ham.
There maybe more to come later with videos.

Kenya's Own bed AGAIN!

We got Kenya a bed this evening. I am hoping that we will have the same results as we have in the past of putting her into her own bed and own room. We have done this to her already at least 3 times in her 2 years of life and each time she had been amazing! She has been sleeping in our room on our air mattress for the last week that we have been here. She was very excited when we got the bed and wanted to go right to sleep. She thinks she is such a big girl now and she really is. She had kicked us out of the bathroom while she goes now. I got her a stool the other day and she can do it all by herself (except wiping, we still do that).

Initially I was going to just add this on to the other post that I just did, but then thought maybe I should let Baby Inside have a post of its own. I am sure for the rest of their lives everything is going to be shared, so I thought I could just let each have their own space now. As if Kenya does not have enough of her own posts in the last almost 2 1/2 years. Yes, almost 2 1/2 years ago because all of our pregnancy post are about her. It sure is silly the things we think of. Oh well.

Baby Inside

Today I had an ultrasound. It was fun to see and know that the baby is growing and developing normally. It's head was face down in my pelvis and so we did not see the face at all. No, we did not discover the gender! Kenya got to see the ultrasound and talked about Baby Inside all day after that. The ultrasounds measurements put me at 26 weeks and 5 days, about 1 week behind my "due date" of July 12, but that because it measurements were within 2 weeks he would not change the due date. All looks good and I will start my regular check up now. This was only the 3rd time I have been to the doctor this pregnancy. I went once in China and then once last Friday for blood tests and such with Dr Hopkin.
If you ask Kenya when Baby Inside will come out she says, "When it get really hot." That is what I told her ONCE a long time ago because I know that is when it starts to heat up. So, cute!

Pst...I think I maybe have seen some evidence that it was a boy, but I do not know! I really can never see anything on those ultrasounds anyway. I never have seen an ultrasound showing it was a boy. With the first ultrasound it is easy to see things because the baby is so small and it all fits on the screen. With the second one it is just body parts and I get so lost as to what I am looking at. So, really what I am saying is there is no creditability to my thinking and it is probably coming for EVERYONE telling me that it is a boy.

Again....

I feel like I post this a lot, but here we go again.
We are moving our little family on Tuesday. We are headed to Shelley, Idaho. Again! no real reason why other than we feel like it is the next stop where the Lord has us stopping on our journey. It appears Robert has another job that he can work while he looks for something more permanent. We are going to back to southeast Idaho where we said we would never really want to go back to, but we have faith it will all work out and that is the place for our little growing family!

Look what I can do!

This is the Easter dress that I made for Kenya this year. I have some really cute accessories to go with it, but you will have to wait to see those on Easter. I think it turned out rather well. I did this all in just a four days of working on it after Kenya went to bed, 1-2 hours each night. That might sound like a lot of time to make a dress and accessories for some, but this is only the 3rd dress I have ever made. I love the way it turned out and Kenya does to. She did not want to take it off.



How I got Kenya to take off the dress was to tell her that she could finish making pizzas with Grandma, but could not wear her dress. Here are some pictures of making pizza. Kenya LOVES to cook and bake pretend or real!

Baby Chicks!

Grandma in January told Kenya that for her birthday she would give her baby chicks to help raise. Well, they finally came in this week and we went and got some. On Monday we went to Kalispell and got 2 turkeys and 9 chickens. She loved it! We make several trips a day out to the ridiculously hot laundry room (the chickens need to stay 90 degrees for the first week or so)to check on the the chicks and pet and hold them. She loves watching them and enjoys taking care of chicks. On Wednesday we went and got 6 more chickens. My mom is going to have quite a few chickens and lots of eggs! We got a variety of breeds and colors as well as some that will have tinted eggs. My baby LOVES animals. She is such a great help and eager to learn.

Kenya and her cousin Mikhail looking at the chickens.
Kenya is getting the feed ready to out in the boxes with the chickens.

Turkeys on the left and 2 week old chickens on the right. This is from the first batch that we got on Monday.

These are the other ones we got on Monday. They are less than a week old.