Reflections on mortality

The other day as we were driving somewhere, Andrew suddenly said, "Do you know when you will die?"
"Uh, when?" I asked.
Andrew said, "When we get older and after you and Daddy have teached us everything we need to know, then you will get older and older and older and Older and OLDER. And then you die."
"That's the way it is," he added with finality.

Andrew's birthday

Andrew turned 5 on Sunday. I was a bit sad to think of him not being small and really young. I made a volcano cake for him. It was actually a chocolate pound cake baked in a Bundt pan with browned butter chocolate frosting. I used some candy and Danish dessert for the decorations. Since I made the cake and froze it a few days ago, it didn't take long to decorate.

Andrew actually said it looked like a turtle until I lit all the candles in the center for the "eruption." Then he was excited about the volcano.

His present this year was a bike. Unfortunately (or fortunately as it may be) it snowed 3-4 inches overnight and we are supposed to have two more storms coming in this week. It may be a while before he really gets to ride the bike.

Edward wanted to give Andrew a gift, so he chose a little car. Then Edward decided he needed a gift too, so he got a car as well.

Andrew's first birthday party

That is, it was Andrew's first "birthday party" with friends. He turns 5 today. We had a nice party on Saturday with about 10 children. We played outdoor games: egg-spoon relay, red light-green light, toss bean bags, drop clothespins into a jar, build marshmallow towers, and so on. We had a piñata that I finally had to break open.
Here's Andrew trying his swing.

We also decorated large sugar cookies.
Edward enjoyed this activity.
His cookie took the prize for the most stuff on it.
Please don't get sick just looking at it.

New blog

Some of the things I think might be interesting to family, and perhaps friends, don't fit very well on this blog. They are usually technical issues dealing with home management. That's a fancy way of saying new things I've learned about cooking or cleaning or organizing or taking care of kids. I started a blog to collect these items. It is eliza-at-home.blogspot.com.

City Council Meeting

Last night we went to a city council meeting. OK, Kirk went back to work and I took the three children and went to a city council meeting. The council was going to discuss and decide on a change to city code wording that would close loopholes in the definitions of "owner occupant" and some other terms. Probably about 95% of the people here not only would be completely bored by this, but would not have these changes apply to them. However, these terms have a huge impact in our neighborhood (if you were wondering how or why, you could see the discussion on our neighborhood webpage/blog) and the neighborhood chair wanted people who supported the proposal to attend. I wrote a letter to the city council and then stayed through all the agenda items (including a long discussion about two maple trees on 800 N.) until they finally got to the one we wanted to hear at 9 p.m. By that time, the boys were running up and down the rows of seats and hitting them to see them bounce back and forth. So the neighborhood chair took them out to get a drink while I got up and made my comment. The boys watched me talk on the television out in the lobby. They were very impressed with the local cable channel. We left before the meeting was over, but were happy to find out that the issue was approved. Cheers for protecting neighborhoods and doing our civic duty! We also think it is interesting (and nice) that we live in a small enough place that we can directly participate in local government.

Gingerbread Girl

I put Lucy in the stroller the other day and Edward came up and said, "She's a gingerbread man." So I asked him to explain. He said Lucy looked like a gingerbread man because her arms and legs stuck straight out. Too bad I didn't get a photo!

We had a nice St. Patrick's Day with corned beef and cabbage (and potatoes and carrots). By the way, the corned beef cuts labeled "flat" are better than the other cuts. And, no matter what people say to the contrary, I cut all visible fat off before I cook it; it still tastes good.

We planted six trees that look pretty much just like this one. This is an Early Elberta peach. The others were peach, apricot, nectarine, and plum. We still don't know if we are brave enough to try an apple tree because of all the spraying involved.

Andrew has been enjoying the warmer weather this past week. Usually he wears his helmet and shoes when he rides his trike, but not this time.

Here's another photo of our funny flowers minus the actual flowers. The plants are getting bigger every day.

These are our beautiful daffodils. I'm very happy that deer don't like to eat daffodils. The deer ate a lot of our tulips, so we may not get any tulips this year.

Shauna, Don, and their girls stopped by to visit on their way to Arizona. We were so glad to see them. Lucy even tolerated being held by someone other than her mother. The other day, though, she followed Kirk to the door as he went outside. After he shut the door, leaving her inside, she patted the door and said, "Dad!" She still doesn't say "Ma" unless she is extremely angry or upset.

Here are all of our samples of stone. There are eight different kinds (L-R): blond sandstone (Park City), Heber red sandstone, beige limestone (local), more blond sandstone with oxidized edges (Park City), Montana stone, "mossy" stone (Colorado), blue-white quartzite, and blue limestone (Zions). Which one would you use?

Flowers and more flowers

These are the first daffodils that bloomed. They are tiny--only about 6 inches high.

These are some neat flowers I planted; they are a type of fritillaria. Hopefully we will get some blooms.

This is Lucy, our beautiful flower. She is obviously doing better. Her second top tooth broke through last night and her fever left.

Andrew and Edward are playing in the sandbox. They like the flowers around our house, though probably not as much as they like dirt and trucks.

Update on Lucy

The last photo showed a very happy Lucy with some new teeth. However, we think her newest one is giving her (or us) grief; she has had a fever of 101-102 since Saturday night. That night she basically only slept if I held her. The nurse said babies can get fevers like that with new teeth, but if the fever continues or won't come down with medication, we should take her in to see the doctor. The problem with giving her Tylenol or Motrin is that she decided she doesn't like medication and will gag as soon as she tastes it, even if I mix it with something nice like homemade applesauce. Occasionally she will gag and then vomit all over everything. Kirk's comment: "She didn't get that gag reflex from me." We are thankful when she keeps some medicine down and is able to sleep better.

Ides of March

Lucy turned 10 months old last week. She learned how to stand. She also has her first top tooth in and another top tooth on its way. You can sort of see the teeth in the photo.

Draper Temple Open House

A week ago we got Kirk out early from work and drove up to see the Draper Utah Temple Open House. It took a long time with the bus rides from the parking lots and back again, but was a wonderful experience. Andrew and Edward enjoyed it and still talk about it. The bus rides were fun, but they enjoyed seeing all the rooms in the temple even more. Andrew said he liked the Celestial Room because he could "feel Jesus there." It is a beautiful temple. We liked the windows and stained glass. There weren't that many people when we went, so we were able to get outside the tents and see the temple from the stake center parking lot nearby. The way they had everything arranged, you actually didn't get to see any of the temple grounds except from the bus. It was pretty cold and windy, but thankfully it wasn't snowing. Later that week, Kirk and I got to go to the Provo temple and do initiatory. We had good experiences there as well.

Star Wars Choir

I came downstairs on Friday and found Andrew and Edward had been playing with the Star Wars figurines that Becky brought over. They set them up--each one standing on a CD--and were listening to a Tabernacle Choir Christmas CD at full blast. Andrew said it was a "Star Wars Choir." Darth Vader was at the front, facing the others and leading them in the singing. A lizard was next to Darth Vader because that was "his friend." The photo doesn't do it justice, especially since you can't really see Darth Vader as choir conductor.

The First Flower of Spring

This is the first flower of spring at our home. We had been watching the bud for the last few days and then it bloomed on Saturday. The boys ran around outside screaming and laughing because they were so excited.

"Take Care Woman"

Andrew calls me the "take care woman," as in "Mommy takes care of me." Sometimes he is sweet and says, "I love you, Mommy, because you take care of me." Then once he said, "I don't love Daddy. He doesn't take care of me." I told him that Daddy does take care of him and works hard so we can have money to buy food, among other things. When we were repeating this conversation to Kirk later in the day, Andrew then said to him, "You don't take care of me. You take care of Mommy." In the end, Andrew decided that he does love his father, he just wants to play with him.