BJ and Tianna: Easter and the rest of our busy week

Dear Jessa ~

Went to the midwife this week. I'm 33 weeks now, and baby is about the weight of a pineapple! He's also head down (hooray!) and everything is good!

I taught Joy School this week. I finished up the unit on the Joy of Individuality and Confidence. They've been making an About Me book and I got to help them finish it up and bind it so they could take it home. I was the favorite teacher, I think because I'm the one who finally let them take it home and they loved it. It's got things like their silhouette, handprint, footprint, an info page, their favorite foods, favorite color, etc. Instant hit.

We had a rest time while we listened to a song

Kessa showed her friends where her hideout is.

Freezer meals were this week. Have I mentioned how much I love this? I did sloppy joes. We added another person this month, but another dropped out, so we still had 9. Turns out, I still had about 5 or so from last month in my freezer, so by the time I got home, I had 15 meals in my freezer! (I made extra of mine for myself.) I figure it's good to let them build up a little, to help out after the baby is born. We'll probably end up with freezer meals every night for a month! I'm sure BJ will love that as he'll be in charge of cooking. :D

There was a total eclipse of the moon this week! Unfortunately it was reeeeeaaaaally late at night. I had a stressful week and there was no way I was going to lose sleep to see a red moon, so I went to bed. And then had dreams about the eclipse until I finally woke up and got up to peek at it and found BJ not home. At almost 1 am. I was so confused. But turns out he went to a friend's house that owns a telescope, so he got some fun pictures. He came home a little before the peak and woke up Kessa to look at it. She was awake for about 5 minutes then said she was ready to sleep again. :D But she's been excited about it since then.

Damian was going to come down Monday night, but ended up selling his house and couldn't come until Tuesday night. (They're moving by May 9 to a rental, so we'll see how much of my basement actually gets done before that! Especially has he's making a trip to Oregon really soon!) He filled in the graves he dug with new concrete and finished up 99% of the framing (all that's left is the ceiling in the game closet). He put in electrical wires to most of the outlets and light switches. He put in all the can lights, so suddenly our basement is super bright. He put in most (? All? I'm not sure) of the heating ductwork. (And man, that was LOUD! And during nap time. He woke up at least 4 of us. His son slept through it, though.) Oh, that reminds me, this time he brought his youngest son, Kolter with him. Kolter is about 5 months older than Abby. I was really nervous at first. I was teaching Joy School and had to make my freezer meal and had a bunch to do. And Kolter is a little Damian (read: mischievous) but I got a bunch done before they came and BJ helped out during Joy School, and all in all, it went really well! Abby and Kolter got along great. Kessa did a great job being a big helper with him. And he really wasn't all that mischievous. And took some really long naps. So overall, it was great and I was glad to have a chance to give Kim a break where I've stolen her husband for the majority of the last 3 weeks.

Kim ran a marathon in SLC on Saturday, so Friday she brought the rest of her kids down and we watched them. The oldest, Lexi and Parker, were super big helpers, which was nice. I may have had more kids here than normal, but probably less work, too. Then Friday night my parents came into town. Damian is getting a new carpet cleaning truck and needs help driving the old one home, so they came down with my aunt on Friday and will drive the old truck back on Tuesday. I'm impressed with my mom. She had knee surgery last week on one knee and on the other a couple of months ago. So she's pretty much a cripple. Yet she's tough and is willing to climb all my stairs for several days in order to be here. And she's a champ, even with her grandkids climbing all over her. :)

Saturday was Easter Saturday and it was busy. I got up that morning and made pancakes. It seemed the simplest way to feed so many people. (We had a total of 11 people here!) Around 10 am, Kessa and Lexi invited us all to a tea party, so we went upstairs to the loft and ate m&ms, pretzels, wheat thins and a half a banana. Then for entertainment Lexi jump roped and Kessa and Taegen played with stuffed animals or something. (I never was quite sure what they were doing...)

Then my mom and I went shopping and came back to find that BJ had turned on the silly sprinkler that Kessa got for her birthday last year for the kids. After that we put the toddlers down for a nap while BJ played Lego Star Wars with the kids and my mom and I napped as well. Then I helped Kessa, Taegen and Abby dye Easter eggs.

When they were done I took the eggs out front (the back yard was still wet from the sprinkler) and "hid" them. (Or rather, set them on the grass.) Then we took the kids out, gave them baskets, and had them find them. It was a fun, simple hunt for little kids. (The two oldest kids helped the two youngest.) And since all the eggs just got put back into the carton, there wasn't any fighting about who got more than who.

With a bonus belly shot of me! Ignore my funny face, though.

After the hunt, Damian and the kids went home. My dad, suddenly bored without being able to help Damian with the basement, came in and asked if he could mow my lawn. Um... yes! While he was doing the back yard I found myself out on the deck, watching him and thinking how nice a day it was. I also remembered my midwife telling me that now was a good time to do gardening on my hands and knees to make sure the baby doesn't become posterior, and saw all the weeds in my garden. So BJ and I and Abby went out to the garden and got to work. I started weeding around the garden beds while BJ started testing out the sprinklers in the garden. Abby took it upon herself to play in the garden drip lines and get incredibly wet and muddy. Not wanting to be left out, Grandma brought Kessa outside on the high chair and gave her her first hair cut. Nothing drastic, just a trim to straighten it out and hopefully give it a jump start to grow faster. Kessa loved it and thanked Grandma profusely.

BJ took the girls upstairs to take a bath (they both needed it after that outdoor excursion) while the Easter Bunny came and hid our baskets. BJ and I shared a basket, as did my parents. So we made the boys search for theirs. My dad's was hidden in the massive pile of storage boxes, under my China hat, and BJ's was in the dishwasher. Dad found his long before BJ did. It was entertaining watching him climb up on counters and looking everywhere high. Until we reminded him that the two easter bunnies were a cripple and a pregnant woman. Hah!

Kessa got some addition and subtraction flash cards, which she has loved. Abby got some toy cars. I got an Easter Lily and BJ got a Lego Star Wars kit. (Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon.) Kessa helped him put it together after dinner today. She pretty much did all of it, except Daddy helped push some together when it was too hard. But still, she did a pretty great job! (Plus we all got some candy, of course.)

Today, Easter Sunday, I got up and made granola for breakfast, and then we all leisurely got ready for church. Church was nice. I even learned some things about Jewish history in my Sunday School class! That doesn't happen often. I liked it. After church BJ had tithing, so the rest of us came back, ate lunch, then napped until it was time to make dinner. I was torn on Easter dinner. It seems silly to eat ham to celebrate a Jewish man. I like the idea of doing lamb, but I did it last year, and didn't have great results. Plus there would only be four adults, and a whole lamb roast seemed like a lot. We ended up deciding that it didn't have to be meaningful or symbolic, just a nice dinner. So I made steak and roasted veggies (with garlic and rosemary) and artisan bread with rosemary and parmesan cheese on top! It was all yummy. And then I spent the rest of the evening doing Primary stuff until I realized I had to hurry and write you if I was going to get all of this written before you got online!

Whew! What a busy week!

Hope you had a lovely Easter, too!

Facebook:

I am So. Tired. of this stuffy/runny nose. It has plagued me this entire pregnancy. My upper lip is so raw today.

Is it funny that that's the main pregnancy complaint I have that is making me wish for the end of pregnancy? Everything else I'm happy to continue dealing with in order to prolong the time until I lose all sleep and have to adjust to three kids.
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Sometimes I open my fridge and there is no sour cream. That's when I realize my priorities have been out of line recently.
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While I still believe that essential oils aren't miracle cures, but are instead tools, Breathe has almost changed my mind the last couple of days. #icanbreatheagainatlast
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Everyone. It is a spring miracle. I just found a box full of EVERYTHING I have been searching for... Probably since we moved here 2.5 years ago. My scriptures (which have long since been replaced), my ring box with the olive wood ring BJ proposed to me with, the key to my mom's house, and all of my medallions from YW! (Back when we got 5 of them.) Plus many others.

It's Christmas in April! (Thank you everyone who got snow today that made this Christmas miracle possible.)
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Damian turned off my power while doing electrical work in my basement today. In a random turn of events, my contacts disappeared on my phone. When he turned the power back on, half of my contacts showed back up. I'm still missing half. They are not in my iCloud. The only backup I seem to have was from after the loss. I am very, VERY, sad. And fascinated at how a power outage could affect my iPhone contacts. I know correlation does not equal causation, but that was really, really coincidental if they weren't related.

Even BJ hasn't been able to fix it. Yet. I'm counting on yet being temporary. Please? [sigh]
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I often wonder how people survive without nerdy people like BJ in their lives. Seriously.

Then again, those people probably wonder how people like me survive without a handyman in my house. To them I say, "touché"
[editor's note: This means BJ fixed my contacts on my phone. Wooo!!!!]

Kiddisms

Kessa: Another way of saying sick is throw up.
BJ: Sometimes when you're sick you throw up. But not always. Sometimes you just feel yucky. Or sometimes you need to go to the bathroom a lot.
Kessa: Like mommy! Mommy is sick with the baby! [lots of laughter from everyone] And she throws up sometimes, too!
We were telling Kessa she had to eat more spaghetti before she could have more cheese.
Kessa: Why?
BJ: Because we know your body is growing strong, but to do that, we need to eat food.
Kessa: Cheese is food!
Grandpa Lovell was playing with Kessa. She let him use her “magic wand” for a while. Then she took it from him and said “Now I'm going to change the password so you can't use it.”

Random pictures: