Abundant Recompense Copy

This is our three-year-old niece, Sonnet. She is deaf and has just started preschool at a school for the deaf. From what I hear the school is awesome, and is going to help a lot with teaching her to sign. Unfortunately, there's no playground! Can you imagine being a student (or a teacher of rambunctious preschoolers) with no place to run and play? Here's the great news - they're working on it. They've got a great fund raiser going on - one of the coolest I've seen. Here's how it works. They sell gift cards to places that everybody shops - think Walmart, REI, Joann, Chili's, Jiffy Lube, etc. You buy a gift card online, they send it to you in a couple weeks. You spend the money you would've been spending anyway, and the company you bought it from gives a portion of their gain to the school. Win-win! You don't spend any more than you would've spent anyway (you buy a $25 gift card, you get a $25 gift card), and Sonnet gets a playground. And I like th...

These are a couple of Addison's most-requested favorites (with bonus material of Nate breaking it down). I especially like that he sings the echo: "Because you're amazin'- mazin' just the way you are..." and that he's singing into the vacuum cord. And Bryn digs 'em too. She lights up every time she hears Dynamite.

Several weeks ago, Nate woke up feeling gung-ho on a Saturday morning and decided we were going on a family sledding trip. I was a grump, but went along with it anyway. By the time we found a decent place and got a good trail worn down the kids got snow in their drawers and it was time to go. We had a great time, obviously. Poor Nate! .

Well, it must be spring, because I finally acted upon the itch to chop off my hair. Nate gave his blessing and even looked through 129347 pictures online with me to get a style that we both approved of. Here it is - and can I just make a little side note here? I think it's hilarious to take pictures of yourself. It makes me feel ridiculous. In Nate's absence and with both kids sleeping I had to go it alone, though. It took like a dozen tries to get one where I was not a) double chin capital of the world or b) showing you into my sinuses trying to avoid being the double chin capital of the world. After agonizing for at least a minute, I decided that this was the most presentable, despite the inspiring expression on my face. But what was I supposed to do? Tell myself to say cheese? Haha - I got a laugh out of the whole thing, anyway. So back to business - the new do: I like it!

Well it went down! Russell and Emilee got hitched. We really missed everybody who wasn't around - Shauna and Doug and kiddos and Ben and Nate especially. Here are lots and lots of pictures of the wedding and open house, in no particular order.

Tomorrow's the big day!

We had a fabulous weekend. We spent Saturday in Provo where we met up with Nate's grandparents and Aunt Jana from Vegas, and his great aunts Beverly and Kay from Orem and New York, respectively and my sister and brother-in-law, Beck and Ben to see the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art. The exhibit was amazing. They brought over several huge altarpieces from Scandinavia and built altar settings around them to match the original ones. They were breathtaking. Bryn playing on the sidewalk at BYU. After the museum, Nate's grandparents treated us to lunch at Mimi's, which is always delish. On the drive over, Nate put his window down and realized to his dismay that it really liked being down. In fact, it liked it so much that it wouldn't go back up. With an hour and a half car ride home ahead of us, that was really going to make for an interesting and chilly trip, so we stopped at a random car place and imposed on Beck and Ben's hospitality for the next few hours...

Well, the kiddos and I will be in good old GA a week from now for my brother's wedding. In an attempt to prep Grammie and Gramps who we haven't seen since last July, here is Bryn all grown up.

I've gotta hand it to lunch. It's my least favorite meal of the day. Kids are grumpy, I'm grumpy, and I never know what to make. Add to that the fact that peanut butter makes me want to throw up unless it's in a Reese's cup. And that bread does pretty much the same thing, no matter how fancy or expensive it is. Pretty much the only way I can gag it down is if it's very toasted and I distract myself as I chew so I'm not thinking about what's in my mouth. Homemade bread is the exception, but I never make homemade bread, and even if I did, who makes sandwiches with homemade bread? So here's what I need from you: what do you eat for lunch that does not involve peanut butter and takes about the same amount of time to slap together as a pbj? Bonus points if it's healthy!