Tuesday, April 7, 2015

March

March!


The month started off like this!  Actually, I believe this was the last day of February, but close enough.  I was able to observe my first two births.  One was on Saturday morning at about 4:20 am, and the other was Sunday night at about 10:30 p.m.  Both families are friends from church, the Stricklans and the Dethloffs, and both births were incredibly beautiful and amazing.  I'm so grateful and honored they let me be a tiny part of their births. 

In between those exciting introductions to life, I got set apart as the Primary President in our ward.  It suddenly felt like I was thrown out a window into a tornado.  There was an event that took place an hour before I was set apart that took two weeks to resolve.  It was an all encompassing, extremely time consuming, very emotionally draining way to begin.  Then the rest of the month has been spent putting on a Great to be Eight fireside, a Service Easter activity,  our first of regular teacher trainings, and have started streamlining teacher orientation.  Oh and then there's callings.  We have at least 20 families moving from the ward around the time of graduation at the U of M, and have been working with that.  Anyway fortunately I have an amazing presidency, any one of which would probably be a much better president than myself.

Anyway, let's take a break from my craziness to take in some happy images. 

The month also started off with some crazy ice.



Anthony took a trip to St. George, UT to see one of his best friends, Dave Sutherland, get married.  Sounds like he had a blast, the wedding was beautiful...and apparently it's t-shirt weather there.







Anthony with Grandpa Arave

Back at home, Ira was hoping for Spring


Testing out a new board game

Eliot's drawing of Adam for a family home evening about the creation.  
Not bad for a 2 year old, eh? 

Ira's FHE contribution: An eagle, cheetah, and lion.






The snow cave caved in.  But the boys had so much fun in their "snow pit," they asked to have a few picnics in it.

Pretending it's summer



St. Patrick's Day.  We just love it around here.

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The rest of life
Anthony's been doing well with his new job at GE as project manager.  He says it's a "change of pace," meaning it's more demanding.  He's handling it like a champ, and still making time to start gardening.
Ira has been really into Ninjas lately, which makes for some unwanted (by me) rough-housing.  He's just decided he doesn't want to keep taking piano lessons, but doesn't mind continueing to play piano with Anthony and me.  So we're still slowly working through the workbook.  I think he mostly wanted to stop because his teacher weaned him off of post-lesson tickle battles, which was the part Ira looked forward to most.

Eliot is making a lot of progress with his language.  Tonight he told me, "Me big boy now. Me three now!" (Birthday update next post.)  We're still working on grammar obviously, but having a string of words this long where he can articulate an idea in his head is pretty thrilling and cute.  Also, over the past week or two he's finally figured out the whole potty training bit that has to do with solid waste.  He's only wearing night time diapers now.  Happiness!  We've also had a few doctor's visits with him.  Looks like he has a hernia, so we have an operation scheduled for him in late May.  He doesn't complain about it very much, so hopefully that's a good sign.

As for me, besides the whole primary whirlwind, things are pretty normal.  I got Ira registered for kindergarten next year, and have been busy with some extra birth-class stuff I've had to do this month, subbing for other parents at the preschool etc.  I feel like I'm getting really large as I'm wrapping up the 2nd trimester.  Last appointment, the baby was transverse, so everyone pray that he'll (or she'll) get into a nice anterior vertex position.  

Happy April everyone! 




Sunday, March 8, 2015

February

I know we're only a week into March, but February is already a blur.  If it weren't for cameras, I'd probably just sum it up with one word: Cold.  

This was the coldest February in Michigan in 140 years.  And I believe it.  



The month started out with a pile of snow.  We were lucky that cousin James showed up just in time to help with the manual labor.



The composed tour.

The silly tour.


He made some ice "sculptures" to store in the boys' snow cave.



Eliot's robot

Ira's knight helmet

The boys are now big fans of ninjas...  not my favorite, with all the chopping and kicking.


We went to the dentist and the boys did great.  But Ira has his first cavity!   

Chillin' with the ladies on Valentine's day.


 Birthday party of Ira's friend Stella, at the Zoological society.  Eliot was thrilled to get his hands on any creature he could. 



Ira preferred viewing from a distance.


Now's the part where you can judge me for my son's cavity, because I have had a major sweet tooth lately!



The makeshift sign says, "Happy First Day Dad!"

After much consideration, Anthony started a new job within GE as project manager for an HR application.  It seems to be a great fit with a good team.

We finally tried out the Deli around the corner from our house, and I have no idea why it's taken so long.  Not only were the sandwiches amazing, but they have soda I haven't had since I was a tiny kid visiting Philadelphia's Famous 4th street Delicatessen. 


 Mmmm.  Carbonated Celery Beverage.                               To the right is Ira's sour face.


And then there's nothing like a good old fashioned plunger battle.  Don't worry though, they're new and unused.  

That's pretty much life.  I'm 22 weeks along now in my pregnancy, and feeling the baby move more which is really fun.

Happy March everyone!