March 8, 2009

B-man showing off his snow angel skills and his smoothie mustache...

March 8, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Birthday Scott! The week has been a bit of a blur. Monday we woke up to lots of snow. About six inches of nice soft fluffy snow. We spent the morning sledding, playing, and trying to dig ourselves out. M did head into work, (most of his office didn’t) but he went after the roads had been cleared and our parking lot was plowed. I love snow days! B-man has loved playing in the big piles of snow even as the temperatures have risen. He actually remarked today that he wished there was snow and he likes it better when it is cold. (I think he has the Arctic blood in him…) We had our last week of swimming lessons. B-man loves them so much, and is going to be sad that he can’t go again next week. He passed the level he had been working on. The teacher thought that he might have been squirrely because it wasn’t enough of a challenge for him. It makes sense to me. She was so patient with him, and it was obvious that she has boys of her own at her house. M has had a slightly different schedule this week because he has been going to some training. The training was all on different options available through his job for retirement and estate planning. He thought the training was great and would come home and fill me in on all of the details.

Wednesday night, after watching David I went to Enrichment. The night consisted of women in our ward sharing their conversion stories, and then a small tutorial on how to decorate cakes or cupcakes. The cake decorating came in the spirit of President Uchtdorf’s talk on creating something as women. The night was spiritually uplifting and fun. After the Enrichment I had a meeting with all the Young Women leaders. The meeting was productive, but when we ended we realized it was almost 11:00 p.m!

Preschool has been going well for B-man. When I picked him up on Thursday the kids all did a little dance to Vivaldi’s “Spring”. They were studying the letter “V” and what better than Vivaldi and his violins. B-man kept talking about how Vivaldi is dead. It was a little funny. It’s the first time he has talked about someone who has been dead for such a long time. That night (Thursday) M had “Man Club”. I finished a book that I had been reading.

Friday I was supposed to watch David, but I didn’t have to at the last minute. We didn’t do anything too differently, but the weather was so beautiful that we made sure to play outside as much as possible. That night for our family party we made pizza for dinner, and then watched a movie of B-man's choice.

Saturday was a busy day, filled with lots of great things. First we watched the little boy of a friend so that they could go to the temple; we had a fun breakfast and played. After getting ready we then drove to the temple and met up with the other couple. After swapping kids, we then were able to enjoy going to the temple. The temple was busier than we have seen it in a while. Maybe the warm weather brings people to the temple? When we were leaving the temple we ran into my cousin being a tour guide for some friends of hers that were in town. It was so fun to see her! When we got back we picked up B-man and then took him to a park so that he could ride his bike. The weather was so beautiful, and he ended up riding his bike with another random boy that happened to have his bike there too. We have a bike with no training wheels that we have been working with B-man to ride. But of course he only wants to ride the tiny bike with training wheels. We told him that he could have one more day with the tiny bike (it is seriously like a clown bike on him it is so little). We moved the training wheels up so he couldn’t use them as much and hopefully it will help him the next time he is on the bigger bike. After enjoying the time at the park we came home to feed Benjamin and then change for our date night. We dropped off B-man with our babysitting co-op and then headed off for dinner. The dinner was great, it was good food, but pretty pricey even with our coupon. After dinner we hit a few car dealerships to test drive cars. Unfortunately only one was open. Apparently the dealerships close early on Saturday nights! After picking up B-man and getting him to bed we watched “Eagle Eye” an entertaining but far fetched movie.

Today has been a strange day. The time change makes everything seem a little “off.” The morning went very well. I was able to finish my lesson, and get dinner ready to go in the oven as soon as we got home from church. M was able to come home after his meetings and before church started which was a huge help. Sacrament meeting went well. We implemented a “no snack” rule today, and it went fairly well. We are trying to slowly change some of the things we do in Sacrament meeting with B-man. My lesson was a bit of a disaster. It will be good in the end because it was a good reminder for me about several things. One was to always have a clock. I ended the lesson so awkwardly and with a TON of material still left because I didn’t have enough time. (The fifteen minutes I did have seemed like five.) After church we had a quiet dinner. We invited about five different families over, but they all had plans. We went for a walk around our neighborhood after dinner. One plus of the change is the extra light!

We love you all! We hop you are well!

R, M, and B-man