Wadoo! Wadoo!

Well, our house has been pretty dull since St. Patrick's Day. Chloe still talks about the leprechan and his footprints every day. And every night she prays for the Easter bunny to come. I had hoped that telling her about his upcoming visit would distract her from the leprechan, but I'm not sure the result is any better.

We have been playing outside a lot in our mostly beautiful weather. The other day we actually broke out the swimsuits and sprinkler. I love those little bodies.
Addie, who loves water and gets excited by any representation of it, wasn't too impressed with the sprinkler.

Chloe, however, had a blast.

She is my little dancer. She even looks graceful when she sleeps. However, don't tell her she's cute or even beautiful. As she constantly corrects me, "Mom, I'm not cute. I'm crazy."

The other morning, Addie woke up and didn't want to be picked up until I had put every bow on her dresser in her hair. I think she will be my girly girl. She loves to get dressed and put on accessories, whereas Chloe would stay in her pj's all day.

This last weekend we spent a little more time with the water. And boy was I kicking myself. Some friends invited us out to Folsom Lake with them for a picnic. In all the time we've lived here, I've never been out to the lake. It took us less than 15 minutes to get there and was so beautiful. We went to the Beal's Point recreation area, and though I could cite the $7 entrance fee as a reason not to go, the truth is, we should have been spending a lot more time out there.

Here's Bracken with his girls, and some one else's random child. Addie is just dying to leap into the fresh melted water.

Doesn't the water just look magical?

Addie just loved it, especially with a stick in hand.

Autumn, Isaac and Chloe.

Fat head momma keeping Addie out of the water.

After we got home that day, while Addie was napping, Chloe watched Ghostbusters with us. She kept turning to me and saying, "Mom, it's about a ghost named Buster. Where is Buster?" I couldn't explain it to her satisfaction.

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2009!

Last night for Family Home Evening, we decided to make a leprechan trap. The girls painted their own version of a rainbow.Then we hid a cage in "clouds" and filled a cup with Lucky Charms to lure a leprechan. Okay, so they were Marshmallow Mateys, but we're okay with a generic leprechan coming to our house.

We explained to the girls that leprechans are little, red-haired, and love to cause mischief. They like to make messes, hide your things, and eat Lucky Charms.

And then I thought, wait, do I really need to trap another one?

This morning, Chloe woke up shouting, "There are octagon footprints in my room!" She followed them down the hall.

Addie helped, too.

In order to properly investigate the trap, they needed to have appropriate leprechan hunting gear on.

I didn't have another shamrock headband, so Addie settled for a ribbon around her head. Don't worry, she liked it fine.

They were so excited to see their trap worked. The leprechan got away, but he did leave his treasure behind.

And in completely unrelated randomness, look what I found in my hanging geraniums yesterday. Our little mourning dove has two eggs in there now. On the one hand, I think it's really cool. On the other, I hope I'm not running to the animal rescue in a couple of weeks. Every year different birds build their nests on our back porch, and every year, the parents get scared off after the babies hatch. And now I have the added dilemma of watering or not watering the flowers. Note to self, next time I try to take a picture of her, turn off the flash.

And for other recent crafts at our house, we made bird feeders. Don't worry, they really did think it was fun. I grew some bird feeder gourds last year and we finally got around to making them into feeders. If you've never grown these before, I highly suggest it. They have large, velvety soft leaves and pretty white flowers, and the gourds are bright green while they're growing. Then you let them dry, cut a hole and shake out the guts. We decorated them, then glued a stick in for a perch. Very simple.

Addie thought the paint was delicious.

So did the squirrels. I meant to take a picture of the finished product and just didn't get around to it until after a squirrel spent all morning enlarging the holes we had cut in the gourds. I can't say I'm surprised. They completely destroyed our feeder last year. Ah, nature.

What a Month

It has been quite a month for our little family. It's amazing how quickly things can change in no time at all.

The evening of my last real post (haunted perfume doesn't count), Bracken came home from work carrying his plant. With absolutely no notice at all, the last news we'd heard about his company being that things looked good for this year, Bracken was laid off. I can't even begin to describe how betrayed I feel. I wrote a very honest, very angry post a couple weeks ago that will probably never be published. Even now, I can't really think too much about it. Besides the injustice of Bracken losing his job while I'm pregnant, the fact is, I'm pregnant and not exactly emotionally stable.

So I fell apart, and Bracken hunted like mad for a job, and thankfully, had a new job less than 2 weeks after being laid off. Pretty amazing. We feel really blessed, but it's still not easy. We still have a lot to figure out, especially medical insurance, etc. And I don't know that I will ever feel truly secure in Bracken's job again. And now that he's the low man on the totem pole in this economy, despite the fact that he's going to work everyday, I live in fear of bad news.

And it doesn't help that this is my grumpy pregnancy. The first one was the first one, and the whole thing was an adventure because of that. The second one was my energetic one--we bought a house, did a lot of work on it, moved, took some trips, stayed really busy. I've decided this one is just my grumpy one. I've been trying not to give in, but I'm losing the battle, so I'm giving up. I am just grumpy and tired this time. Lots of perfectly pleasant people (not that I'm ever one of them) turn into grouchy messes when they're pregnant, so why can't I?

But it's not all bad news. We had our ultrasound a couple weeks ago and everything looks good. The baby's healthy and developing normally, and for the first time, I do not have a fetus who's head is big for her body. And that's right, it's another girl! Bracken's mom thinks the reason we're having another girl is because I have so many good skills to teach girls. I'll just need to find someone else to teach them quilting and scrapbooking. I have to say, I am surprised. I really thought this one was going to be our little boy.

Addie remains a perpetual motion machine. I bungee corded the chairs to the table last week to cut down on what she could reach, but it hasn't really slowed her down. I'm constantly amazed at the trouble she can get in to. Her vocabulary is increasing constantly, my favorite additions being please (pee) and food (foodah). She's even gone in the potty a couple of times, though we are no where near potty training with her.

I've realized that with Chloe, I have a child who instead of saying "um" when she can't think of something to say, says, "I love you." She really is very sweet. And affectionate. I'm still working on teaching her appropriate boundaries with her sister. You'd think that Addie's tears would clue her in that Addie is not having fun anymore, but no. I'm understanding more and more why my dad's only wish for every holiday was "A Day Without Fighting." And again, to all my younger siblings, I am so sorry.

The other big news in our house is that I was released this Sunday from the Young Women's presidency. It's amazing how mixed I can feel about a release that I've been looking forward to. I do love the YW, and I will miss being with the girls, but I've really been feeling like I'm not in a position to give them what they need right now. For example, my due date is the last day of girls camp, there is a handcart trek in June that I just don't think I should go on, and all the big activities preceeding it will involve hiking and endurance preparation. Plus, as I've mentioned before, I'm just grumpy.