Secret Confessions

Every night after I put my kids to bed, I raid the pantry looking for a dessert. At about 9 p.m., I am craving sweets... ANYTHING sweet. For this reason, I refuse to buy chocolate chips or anything that can be used in a dessert (unless I bought it to make a specific dessert for a specific event). But to my credit, you'd be amazed at the concoctions I can create during my cravings. I have to admit, I'm impressed with my own resourcefulness! Let me tell you, you can make some good tasting stuff with some teddy grahams, stale marshmellows, and peanut butter.

Even foods that I don't normally eat or want to eat will sound good to me at the end of the day, if they have sugar in them. For example, I buy toaster streudels for my daughter (I let her eat like 1 a week, on days when I don't feel like making breakfast). The other night I was going through my usual routine of opening the refrigerator over and over again, hoping that something new would pop out to me since opening it the last time. Then I usually wander over to my pantry in hopes of finding an extra chocolate chip or something laying around that I didn't know about or had forgotten. When all of a sudden, I remembered that toaster streudels have icing on them. ICING! Icing equals sugar. So of course, I scarfed one down at like 11 p.m. and to me, it tasted just as good as some creme brulee or chocolate eclair coming out of the best pastry shops in France. Okay, I've never actually been to France, but I imagine their pastries are DIVINE! Am I the only one that goes through this at night? If not, do tell!!

Musical Beds

For the last 3-4 weeks, Aubrey has been waking up in the middle of the night. She'll walk over to our room and kneel down on the floor and start whimpering. Of course, Dallin and I are exhausted because like I said this tends to happen in the wee hours of the morning. So one of us (whoever heard her first) will pick her up and put her back in bed and lay down with her for a bit. And I have to admit, that once I'm in her bed, there isn't ANYTHING that can get me back out of her bed. I'm not sure if it's the "comfy" mattress or snuggling up with our daughter. But 9 out of 10 nights, one of us ends up sleeping in her bed at some point in the evening.

Jumping to my usual topics here: okay, yesterday, we felt 5 tremors. I think there were actually more than that, but we actually felt 5 in our home. Sure, they're small ones, but the epicenter continues to be very close to our home. I went to walmart last night to stock up on non-perishables yesterday and was kind of laughing at myself on the drive there because I thought I am probably just being paranoid. But when I got to Walmart, I realized I'm not the only one thinking there may be a "big one" heading our way. When I got to the bottled water isle, they were only a handful of water jugs left. Seems like I'm not the only one stocking up!

Third Time's A Charm

Our little Evan recently turned 1! He has been the perfect baby. He's a "smiley" guy, he entertains himself most of the time, and is generally well tempered. When we had my first son, I remember that I could not WAIT for his first birthday. I was chomping at the bit to take the pictures of him diving into his cake, frosting smeared across his cheeks. But unfortunately, he had some serious feeding issues at the time, and all he did on his 1st birthday was touch the cake and gag every time he got the tiniest bit of frosting on his finger.

When my second child, Aubrey, hit her 1st birthday, I was excited again to capture that magical "cake" moment. But we celebrated her birthday late in the evening and by the time we got around to eating cake and ice cream, she had lost interest and was cranky and pretty much ready for bed.

So you can imagine my joy when with my THIRD child, I FINALLY was able to get a picture of one of my kids eating his cake on his 1st birthday. He loved every bite of it, and pretty much picked all of the sprinkles off of the cake too.




We also recently had my mother visit for a couple of weeks. She has trekked out to Reno for every one of my kids' first birthdays (way to go Grandma!). Anyway, every time she comes out, I make a huge list of everything I need to do (or want to do without kids). This includes going out to lunch with friends, going to the post office (I absolutely HATE going here with my kids), and so on. I got most of my list checked off and even squeezed in a nap or two. Thank goodness for my mother!

And last but not least, we also managed to squeeze in the first day of spring, our anniversary, and Easter. And since life has been VERY hectic the last few weeks, I am being lazy and will just include some recent pictures rather than getting into all of that.

Grandmacita and Aubrey


Jake & Aubrey after church


Trying to smile after naptime


Celebrating our anniversary in Tahoe