I'm a PUBLISHED children's book illustrator!!!

I found out a couple nights ago that my book is now IN the store on the shelves for sale!!! I had been told it wouldn't be out until March so this comes as a very happy surprise!!!

The little boys and I drove out to our local Deseret Book store to see for ourselves:

What a thrill to see it sitting there! So much work went into this book! Truly it's a dream come true!

If you would like to buy it, you can find it here. And I'll be happy to autograph it for you (but please pay for the postage to mail it back to you...a SASE would be helpful!)

6 weeks old

We've hit that monumental 6 weeks! Well, I don't know what exactly is monumental about it other than I had my postpartum check-up and all is well there.

Zachary has really been cooing more and more this week. So fun. The baby acne is starting to subside a little. He's had a bit of a rash all over his little body too but I'm not too worried since Christopher went through the same thing...and I've done all I can to remove any possible irritants for the meantime.

I love these little nightgowns for overnight...makes those middle of the night diaper changes much easier!

Anthony & Aaron laughed when they saw this pic--they said, "He's doing the Iron Cross!" (One of the rings skills in gymnastics--if I had the time, I'd have drawn in the rings for fun...another day, perhaps.)

Shockingly Fun Pack Meeting

We played with electricity at Pack Meeting this week.

George, who is now Assistant Cub Master, was Electro-Man:

Here the boys learned about electromagnetism (Anthony's lifting a pile of paper clips there)

Benno demonstrated the energy production of a hamster wheel...kidding...he just happily ran in circles for much of the night

And the static electricity race where they pulled aluminum cans across the floor with the balloon's static:

Hooray, Aaron! You win!

Westside Classic 2010

This past weekend we attended Anthony & Aaron's first gymnastics meet of the season (and Aaron's first meet ever!) Both boys did a great job.

Aaron on Pommel Horse (and I love that you can see Anthony's little face peeking out right there under the right edge of the pommel horse.)

And Anthony on PH...amazing the difference a year makes. This is his 2nd year as a level 4--the coach thought it best that he repeat 4 and he has really improved and refined his routines:

(Sorry to those who already saw a couple of these on Facebook)

Anthony on Floor--this is the first time he's ever done a round-off back handspring in competition (at the end):

(By the way, that was MY camera flash that went off--not supposed to use a flash at all in gyms--but somehow I switched it on while trying to juggle the camera, a hungry Zachary, and while keeping score...at that point I put the camera away! I wish I knew where George's good camera was...I don't like the graininess of all my photos with this camera anyway!)

Aaron on Rings, on which he is simply AMAZING...check out his lever (when he holds himself out horizontally). His landing is the only part that lost him points...and we laugh that he does his salute to the judge as an afterthought:

Anthony on Parallel Bars:

Aaron on High Bar...again, his ending salute was an afterthought, ha-ha!

The end of the meet was terribly anticlimactic...they've changed the way they do meets for level 4 this year I guess...they don't hand out medals to the boys! We were so disappointed and the boys especially. It turns out that Anthony was #1 All-Around with his score of 90.5 and we were so sad that he didn't get any kind of recognition for that! Aaron's a good sport though and decorated himself in his ribbons--his final score was 77.7:

It was a good meet for the whole team--I believe we took 1st though I don't know for sure because of the no awards thing (which really bothers me! Such a PC thing to do.)

MLK Day Sledding

George took the 3 big boys up to Mt Hood on their day off on MLK Day to go sledding. I'm glad we have the mountain for snow because we've had all of ONE day of snow here this winter and temps down here in the valley are hovering at 50 degrees...I have bulbs coming up already and it's January! Insane!

Anyway, these are some of George's pics & videos from the day. Looks like a good time:

It was a gray day but the scenery is still spectacular.

I love hearing Anthony's laugh in this as Aaron sleds past:

5 weeks old

I told you this baby smiles and finally we're catching it with the camera!

He's 5 weeks now and this has definitely been the week when that little smile has exploded to a full-time activity...when he's awake, he's smiling. Which is really funny/frustrating in the middle of the night when I'm trying to keep things low-key in an effort to get him to drift back to sleep but instead he's staring up at me with the hugest smile in the dark

and it cracks me up...

As far as sleeping goes...I think we're finally settling down into a pattern--he's usually up between 11-12, then again between 2-3, and then at 5. And if I'm lucky, he'll go back to sleep after feeding at 5...if I'm unlucky, he'll be up and restless all the way from 5 until about 6:30, which doesn't give me time to sleep at all before I have to be up with the big boys at 7.

Can it really be that he's over a month old already???

BedJump Benno

Are you all familiar with bedjumping? If not, check it out here...pretty funny.

Benno yells out "To infid-it-eee, wet me onnnn!" when he jumps (translated, it's Buzz Lightyear's "To infinity and beyond!")

I love Tulips.

Zachary spotted these while we were out grocery shopping yesterday and bought me a bouquet...wasn't that sweet?

Somebody has to teach all these boys to buy girls flowers.

Brother love

At the Zoo with Marcia!

My fabulous friend Marcia (and one of my wonderful BYU roommates) was in town yesterday & invited us to join her family at the Zoo...so we did!

(Ok, I was just thinking about it and I'm blown away--it was almost 15 years ago that we first met! CRAZY! Maria, can you believe that???)

It turned out to be a good day for the zoo...not so rainy that you couldn't enjoy it but just rainy enough to keep the crowds down. The animals were especially entertaining.

Here are 7 of our 10 kids!

George & Benno and the elephants.

Zachary came appropriately dressed in his little elephant outfit. Unfortunately, he didn't see a single one of the animals since this is the only time (in the cafe) he left the cocoon-like stroller!

Some silly boys:

And the sea lion we laughed at. The bats and beavers were especially funny too.

Fun day at the zoo! Thanks for inviting us to join you, Marcia & family!

Spiffy on Sunday

I'm sorry I'm posting so many baby pics here. Unfortunately, life sorta revolves around the baby at present so that's all there is to see and talk about.

Since Zachary is likely our last baby, I'm just feeling so nostalgic about him and babies in general so I've kinda been documenting things...this adorable little sweater was knit by Grandmom Q. It's so precious and little that my babies always outgrow it way too quickly, hence my need to photograph Zachary in it before he doesn't fit in it anymore.

(He's on the verge of crying in these photos which explains the pained and distressed expression on his face.)

And that beautiful blue blanket was knit by Aunt Diane (I think??? I know I've had it for a long time now...maybe Grandmom knit that too...regardless, there are some talented family members and I have some really sweet baby clothes and blankets thanks to them!)

His shoes (Nike, of course!) are still on the big side...he will outgrow those in a couple quick months too though. Oh baby, don't grow so fast!

Science Fair

Back in December (or was it November? no matter) Anthony signed up to participate in his school's science fair. I didn't realize the fair itself was happening in the 2nd week of January or maybe we'd have decided not to do it knowing we'd have a brand-new baby at home...but oh well, he signed up and we were committed. At the time, it seemed like a good idea to do it once as 'practice' before next year when the 5th grade is required to participate.

He came up with the project idea entirely on his own. He wanted to find out in which liquid dry ice 'melted' (or sublimated, more appropriately) the fastest. He tested it in water, milk & root beer, along with one 'control' chunk of dry ice by itself.

George assisted in setting it up and handling the dry ice.

Who doesn't love watching dry ice in action? We were startled by the milk's reaction...it just bubbled and bubbled and bubbled!

It was fun for all the boys.

Finally all the ice melted and Anthony had to compile his info to present on his board. I admit I assisted him with this part--I'm not sure how much help becomes 'too much' help but as long as he was the one working, writing and directing, then it's gotta be OK, right?

Before we'd taken it to the school to set up, I felt like it was just an average project, but once we got there and saw the rest of the projects, it really stood out, if only for the brightly colored paper on the board. Somehow or other, his name was left off the project list too so his board had to be stuck on the last table among the 5th graders and not with his class.

The next day was the day of the fair itself and Anthony said he was given a paper telling him to be back that night for another review with the judges (I never actually saw that paper...somehow it disappeared between school & home.) Here he is presenting his project again to the judges.

Then we waited until they announced the 'winners'... Anthony was one of the students awarded the "Students' Choice Award" (and he said his classmates told him earlier in the day that they'd formed a 'fan club' for his project, ha!) and then, surprise of surprises, he was selected as one of the 6 students who gets to go on to the district science fair!

So proud of you, Anthony! Great job! (And still laughing a little...here I'd thought it was an "average" project, and that we did this as practice for next year, AND he was left off the list--we could've skipped it and no one would be the wiser!) Good luck at District now! That doesn't happen for a few months still so hopefully we can keep his board intact until then!

***And guess what--that's not Root Beer in the Root Beer bottle. We drank the Root Beer and refilled it with water & used food coloring to make it Root Beer colored again! (We couldn't risk someone stealing a full 2-Liter bottle of precious Root Beer, ha!) The milk carton has water in it too.