Sunny

This morning David #3 woke up and said, "Mom, today we're going to be happy because it's sunny outside." Made me laugh. Made my day!!!

Calf vs. Baby

One would think that apples to apples, it would take the same time for a calf to drink a bottle as a baby...

Tonight, David called from a Scouting campout to ask me to feed our calf, Dolly. My dad gave us this little calf after she lost her mother. They had to do an emergency c-section on the cow and they were able to save little Dolly.

When David called, it was already 9:00pm---DARK!!! I don't do so well by myself in the dark. I always manage to conjure up the worst possible scenario in my mind of how I'll meet my doomsday death in the dark. And tonight was not any different (we've also had a bear lurking around the house, so that doesn't help).

I mixed up Dolly's bottle and put a head-lamp on my head, and walked up to the barn. I kept turning my head 180 degrees every 30 seconds to see if I could see little beady eyes. Or even big bear egg eyes. Thankfully, I didn't see anything on the way up.

I got up to the barn, went down the middle aisle, and looked in the first stall. (David told me the calf was in the first stall.) I looked down and there were pigs. So I walked to the back stall, and something reached down and grabbed my head. I started freaking out. I was screaming like crazy. The dogs started barking and the pigs started making noises. I kept trying to turn the head lamp to see what was going on. My head kept getting smacked. FINALLY, I looked up and there were two birds FLOGGING me!!! It wasn't just a simple flog--I was getting double-teamed. I ran out of the middle of the barn screaming with my hands above my head. I kept thinking they were going to scratch my face with their feet, poo on my head, or I was going to get some sort of strange bird lice. Luckily, no damage done.

I went around to the side of the barn and found Dolly. I gave her the bottle and within about 50 seconds I could hear her gulping air. Amazing. I grabbed the bottle, closed the stall door, and walked as quickly as possible back to the house. (I walked for fear that if something was behind me and I ran, surely it would chase me). I know. I'm secretly a wimp.

And now, I must say...Thankfully, when it comes to calf verses baby, CALF IS THE WINNER. I don't think I could have handled more than 50 seconds.

Our little Over-Achiever

With baby #1, I read all of the week by week pregnancy and baby developmental guidelines on-line. I read tons of books on pregnancy and new baby. With baby #2, I looked at the books/Internet a couple of times--mostly when I was feeling extremely sick or baby was feeling sick. On Sunday, I opened my very first baby book for baby #3. I hope that baby #2 and #3 don't feel neglected. I'm definitely not a pro at mothering, but I guess with each baby I've become a bit more easy-going. It really has more to do with me than the kids. I'm not so up-tight and stressed because I feel a lot more comfortable with myself as a mom.

The reason I opened up the baby book for #3----We've decided that Madilyn is already an over-achiever. She's developing so fast. And, while I'm very excited for her accomplishments, I find myself sad that she's not the teeny tiny baby that she once was. Granted, she's still a baby; but, she's getting so mobile and she's developing her own little personality. I'm missing the "baby slug" stage, but I am enjoying the present moments that pass all too quickly.

Madilyn has been crawling for over 2 weeks now. On Saturday, while I was home with the kids cleaning up, Madilyn sat up all by herself on the rug. And then, on Sunday, I was sitting at the table talking with my mom. Madilyn squirmed over to the bottom of my chair, and WA-LA. She grabbed the chair slats at the bottom of the chair and pulled herself up into a standing position. STANDING? She just barely started crawling and she just sat the day before?? I have a feeling that next week she's going to be doing the triple jump or running sprints. ;)

I don't know if I'm ready yet for the fascination of toilet paper and toilets which has plagued all of my children. I don't know if I'm ready for the excitement of electrical outlets and pouring/dumping anything out of a container. However, I do know that I sure like this wee one! She's a keeper!

Cheese

Secret confession. I love cheese. It's a great weakness of mine. I found cheese in college. BYU gave me my husband, my education, and a love for cheese. Okay. Not really BYU. I guess my love for cheese came from my cute mother-in-law who piles two cups of cheese on a tortilla and microwaves it for a "cheese crisp." Delightful!!
My latest obsession is feta. I can eat it on anything and since it's a strong cheese I can eat just a little bit and feel healthy! HA! Anyway, I had no idea that there was such an assortment of cheese growing up. My mom only bought the Kraft American slices.
Here's the point. The only cheese I've had that I don't like is GOAT cheese. I can't stand it!! I've tried it in various settings and I find it absolutely disgusting. I always try it again thinking that it will taste like feta and I'll like it, but alas I never like goat cheese.

There are a couple of things I can't stand about goat cheese:
1. The taste/smell of goat cheese reminds me of a wet goat.
2. Goats are cute, but they really stink when wet.
3. My dad had goats when we were kids who were frightening. There was one little black billy goat who was seriously the devil. We'd run across the farm yard to get up in the barn loft to our clubhouse and the black billy goat would chase us head on. He had some little spiky horns, some wicked eyes, and needless to say I got rammed in the back side several times. All of us were afraid of him.
4. One time in high school, when I was feeding some animals on the farm, I heard my neighbor's goat bawling. The sound scared me, but I walked down to the fence to see what was going on and saw a little goat with his head stuck on the far fence. I hiked over the dividing fence and valiantly went over to save the bawling goat. (I think it was a trick.) I reached down and grabbed the goats head, twisted his horns, and set him free. Oh, did I mention that the fence was an electric fence? Just as I twisted his horns, I somehow got my head on the electric fence, and ZAP!!! I got completely electrocuted in my attempts to save the goat!! Also I do believe it was raining.
5. I've eaten goat. I know I shouldn't admit that, but it was quite traumatizing to me as a child.
6. I've had goat's milk. Let's just say this was a dare. It was raining outside. My softball team dared me to run over to the field and "milk" a goat. I did. It was disgusting. I haven't had goat's milk since.
Perhaps my issues with goat cheese, don't just stem from taste. Perhaps I've been deeply traumatized by goats throughout my life. Perhaps I shouldn't admit to so much all at once. Alas, I love cheese, but I abhor goat cheese. Sorry, Mr. Goat!

Happy Easter!!!

We've had an absolutely fantastic Easter weekend!! So much family fun time!! Highlights from this week and weekend:

• David #3 praying every time he says the prayer for the last two weeks for: 1. "Please bless Ella and Brycy and LeAnn and Jared to come visit" (he's been counting down every day for 2 weeks. He got up every morning and yelled, "Mom it's 3 days!!", etc until they came) 2. "Please bless we'll go to the swimming pool for being a big listener" 3. "Please bless that we'll do Easter on the ground" 4. "Please bless Jesus that he died for us." (I love his prayers. They're so sincere and cute and everything starts with "please bless".)
• Jen coming home on Friday evening.
• Going to the Easter egg hunt at Church with all of the little kids and getting to see 4 new baptisms that same day. What a great time to be baptized!! Quite tender!
• Taking the boys and Madilyn to the swimming pool. There's a new community center here and they have a really nice swimming pool with a kiddy section/beach. The kiddy section has a really large 2 foot pool with all sorts of fun kiddy water things in it--wave pool, sprayers, etc. and a water slide. Jen came along and the boys were just SO HAPPY!! They love going swimming and we always manage to go when Jen's around and she's such a good sport.
• Jared, LeAnn, Ella and Bryce coming in. Spending time chatting, playing, building puzzles, eating absurd amounts of food, coloring Easter eggs, kidtastrophes, yummy Easter dinner together with everyone, lots of Easter egg hunts with the kids (Grandpa hiding the eggs and all the kids looking for them), going to church together, enjoying the Easter sunshine, snuggling with Bryce, and Easter baskets for everyone. A funny moment: Mom set the mashed potatoes on the table today and Ella picked up the massive potato spoon and shoved the whole thing in her mouth and then put the spoon back in the bowl. Now if I did that, not cute. But Ella--cute.
• And the real highlight of Easter had to be tonight. We did an Easter activity with eggs and pictures all about the Savior. The boys really had a good time and I think David got several of the concepts. It was a nice way to finish up a fantastic weekend. Thanks, Valeri, for the ideas on the eggs. We'll use this for many years to come and it can be tweaked for all ages. :) http://valeriandersen.blogspot.com/2009/04/easter-story-egg-hunt.html

Hope you all had a great Easter!!

100 Books

I love to read. I especially enjoy reading classic books. I'm posting this for future reference as I'd actually like to try to read all of these some day!! Thought some of you out there might enjoy as well.

Here's how it works:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE

The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (I have to admit that I have not finished this one)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (I've read book 1&2)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (I feel like it's mandatory to underline this one)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I haven't read the COMPLETE works, but I've read a lot of Shakespeare)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (I read a junior version of this when I was in middle school, so I'm not sure it counts)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (I love these movies. I definitely need to read the books)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (I'm actually currently reading this one)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (Also read this as a junior classic. Need to read the full version)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (Also read this as a junior classic. Need to read the full version)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Also a junior classic)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (I actually really liked this book and probably shouldn't admit it because it was darkness)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (one of the best quote books ever)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (I read this on the buses of El Salvador the complete unabridged collection. Pure perfection. I love this book and I even enjoyed all of the history)

The good news is that at least I've read more than 6 of these books. The bad news is that I haven't even read half of them. Maybe that's a new goal for the year.....We'll see. :)