Easter pictures and an Easter story

Our Easter weekend was good, but unexpected. We had planned a trip to Yakima to be with my family. That changed when a friend and co-worker of Greg's, Seth Auten, was killed in a one person car wreck last Monday. He was 33, a husband, and father to two young boys. Please, think of this family in your prayers.

We decided to stay in town so we could attend his memorial service on Saturday. It was a very sad, yet hopeful, service. Seth was a Christian, as is his entire family, and through the grief you could feel them clinging to God. It was an excellent reminder of why Christians celebrate Easter. Because Jesus is ALIVE we have hope that death is not the end, but rather the beginning of eternal joy and celebration. It also reminded Greg and I that we don't have the luxury of waiting to decide how and where we want to compartmentalize God in our lives. He is real, we all will die, and we had better be prepared for that reality at any moment. I'm grateful for the peace that comes from a relationship with Christ.

The rest of our weekend revolved around our family. After the Easter egg hunt, we went to Seth's service. That night we had a picnic in our living room with pizza and basketball. Sunday we woke up EARLY to the excitement of Easter baskets full of treats and a new toy. After church we spent hours just playing with the kids; legos, tinker toys, Elefun game, books, and a throughly trashed house. That afternoon we were at Ma and Pa Joneses house for Eater dinner, more treats, and Loony Tunes. It was a full weekend and day but was just as it should have been.

For the camera happy person I have become, the only Easter pictures I have are from the Easter egg hunt at Aubrey's preschool. It was the perfect size group and the kids were amazed at their loot.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and were full of the joy of what Easter is really about.

p.s. Am I the only one who cannot see the photos when I upload them to blogger? All they give me these days it the code (HTML?). It frustrates me because I can't always remember which pictures I have uploaded! I can see them once I publish the blog post but not before.

Happy Easter!!

Jesus has RISEN! He has risen indeed!!!!

Moving update

This post is to keep people in the loop since I know you are dying of curiosity. You know, since you don't have your own life to lead and are anxious to live vicariously through my pregnant moving life.

The house selling process continues. Things look very good but we are waiting on the appraisal of the buyer's house as well as ours. Due to the nature of the buyer's situation our closing date is FAST. We are outta here on April 15. Between now and then the kids and I are making a trip to see my grandparents and then we're all heading to Yakima for Easter and then having a moving weekend. It will be here in the blink of an eye.

All this moving stuff is making me forgetful and disorganized. I forgot about my hair appointment the other day until I glanced at the calendar two minutes before I was supposed to be there. Thankfully I have been seeing Rachel for a long time and she laughed and even allowed me to reschedule. Thanks for the grace there Rachel. I only have two brain cells left and they never fire simultaneously.

We are starting to unpack. We have many boxes already over at our new house so Greg and I spent a few hours last night getting some things put away. I know we are in a unique situation but this is such a nice way to move. Gradually.

My folks are coming this weekend to help. My dad is going to help Greg dismantle the swing set and my mom is going to help me work on some misc. packing, moving of boxes, and unpacking. Sometimes I look at the things my parents still are always doing for one of their four kids (or Greg's parents and their two kids) and I think, you never stop being a parent. That's cool with me, I hope my kids still need us when they are all grown up.

When are you pregnant, you can pull all sorts of weird muscles that you didn't know you had.

I haven't felt overly anxious the last few days but my dream life indicates otherwise. The past three nights I have had variations on my classic stress dream. They always involve school, me ignoring or not knowing about a particular class, and then realizing I still have to take the final and oh, shoot, it starts in ten minutes. Last night I had forgotten to write that pesky Ph.D. thesis that I was scheduled to defend in an hour. The night before I realized the day of the final that I had been enrolled in a particle physics class. The night before that I chose to blow off a semester's worth of classes only to find myself attending all the finals. Do you have a specific dream when you are stressed? I call mine nerd dreams because, as you can deduce, my nightmares are made up of doing poorly in school. THE HORROR!!!!

Time for a nap. Happy trails to you!

Caught with my pants down

UPDATE, UPDATE!!!!!!

As of today, the people that made me work my tail off, stayed for one minute, and didn't appreciate my three bedroom house, have put on offer on that house that we accepted and we have signed the preliminary signing agreement. They want a close of April 15. God works in cool ways. HOORAY!! Now Mojo won't have to be naked and sleeping in a box.

Metaphorically speaking that is.

We have found this whole house selling/move thing rather tedious, laborious, and currently, disappointing. We are trying to sell the house by ourselves and it is SLOW going. Few calls and fewer showings.

The first few weeks we were listed I about killed myself keeping the house constantly sparkling. Not a fun way to live but I was sure that THE BUYER was going to show up on my front door and I'd have five minutes to prep.

Then there wasn't any action. A few phone call, not a single showing, and my dedication slipped. The house is still clean but not oh-yes-please-stop-by-in-the-next-five-minutes-and-I always-have-fresh-baked-cookies-on-the-counter-and-my-kids-never-have-snotty-noses clean.

We have had a bit more action since but imagine my horror when I get a phone call today from a realtor who is hoping to show the house in fifteen minutes. I took a look around and thought to myself, impossible. To the realtor I said, "Can you give me an hour?"

Here are a few tricks I learned in that hour.

1) Shoving the five loads of clean clothes you had spread out to fold into garbage bags and throwing them in the back of the van works.

2) You can rinse dirty dishes in a sink, place them nicely in a cupboard, and take them back out later to really clean.

3) THANK GOD for beautiful, sunny days. I threw the kids outside, acted like I had planned a picnic lunch all day, and made them eat on paper towels. No dishes, no crumbs, no mess in the house, and the kids think I'm awesome.

4) You need at least ten minutes of rest after an insane hour of cleaning because if you are pregnant your entire head will glow neon red from the exertion and the prospective buyers will be more concerned about you keeling over than the condition of the house.

5) You son will, two minutes before showing, throw open the garage door and re-ding the wall that was so recently patched and repainted. This, with a door stop in place and everything.

6) Your hopes of a nap will be GONE. Your kids naps will be all off. You will be frazzled and grumpy.

7) The buyers will walk in, spend six minutes looking, say, "Is it really only three bedrooms?" and leave. With never knowing that you nearly died trying to make the house look pretty for them. You know, because with three little kids and pregnant belly it always looks like this.

And Greg wonders why I think doing this with a newborn would be impossible. Not hard, not challenging, not even horrible, but IMPOSSIBLE. IMPOSSIBLE I SAY.

What dreams are made of

A guy Greg works with needed to get rid of his Nerf dart guns. (His fiance wondered why he needed SEVEN of them.) He gave them all to Greg. When he walked in with that bag of guns Nathan sucked all the oxygen out of the air. We already owned two so we now have a complete arsenal. Watch out you private militias, you ain't got nothing on the Joneses.

And for the record, Nathan and Dane may or may not have we their pants in excitement when they saw all the guns.

I am definitely missing the Y chromosome. Aubrey is upstairs taking a bubble bath and playing with My Little Ponies. Ahh, now that I get!

Nathan Noodle

I realized that my little Nathan needed some blog face time. Plus, he's been full of funny comment that I must record for posterity. And he's cute. And funny. And Mr. Mischief.

A few weeks back Nathan wasn't feeling well and was lying on the couch. Greg and I were both sitting by him and he told us that he thought the sickness was starting in his left arm. (He had a nasty stomach bug.) He then showed us with his other hand how the tummy ache had traveled from his left arm, down his legs, across his body, and into his stomach. He then asked if we could put "Boo Boo Buddy" on his left hand to make him feel better.

Large vocabularies are genetic in my family. My mother is a walking dictionary. During childhood we picked up many of her words just from osmosis. I seem to be passing it along. Nathan was describing how good Cadbury mini eggs taste. "Delicious. Or scrumptious. Or DAZZLING." (I actually think dazzling came from the "Fancy Nancy" books.) I was cracking up and Aubrey wanted to know why. Nathan told her it was because he was, "very witty." Ironically I asked him the other day what witty meant and he looked at me as though I were speaking Russian. But it's true, he is quite witty.

He got new "Cars" and "Buzz Lightyear" jammies. Yes, we fully support the poor, financially depressed people of Disney. He wore his Buzz Lightyear jammies for 36 hours straight. He would stand on the couch and push all the buttons on the shirt (you know, the ones that are part of the material) and zoom around the house. When I finally made him take them off to wash them he told me that I had made him "so so sad."

He's almost four, can you believe it?? He is a great addition to everyday.

Tread lightly

These are quotes, all from the last week:

"Whoa, you have really popped out there!"

"Is it going to be a huge baby?"

"I have a co-worker in your exact same position, three months to go and already really big."

"You must be getting close to the end, huh?"

"It is your fourth, that's probably why you're already so big."

Dear friends, watch out. Hell hath no fury like a PREGNANT woman scorned.

A spring like day

The proverbial blink of an eye

Tomorrow we enroll Aubrey for kindergarten.

Aubrey can tie her shoes now.

Yesterday she asked about getting her ears pierced. (!!!!!)

She is anxious to take the training wheels off her bike.

She can almost do a real cartwheel.

She is an artist and writer extraordinaire. Our house is wallpapered with her beautiful pictures, saying things like, "To: Mommy, Love: Aubrey."

She FINALLY weighs enough to be in a booster seat.

She always puts together her own outfits and is usually a mismatched beauty.

She told me, "Mommy, I don't need to hold your hand when we cross the street because I looked very carefully." This is true but I made her hold it anyways because I like it.

IT'S BEEN SAID 1 MILLION TIMES, BUT DON'T BLINK. She is growing up WAY too fast.

It's a shame

Remember Dane? My son? I hope you enjoyed him the last time you saw him because I sold him today.