April 26

Amanda and her family stayed with us last night. They are on their way through to Disneyland. We got a babysitter and went out to dinner with Kevin and Amanda. It was so fun to spend some time with them. It's nice to be in a place where so many people pass through.

I had a tooth pulled this week. It wasn't fun. I had a root canal in the tooth in college. Then I finally got a crown on it about 3 years ago, but the dentist didn't do a very good job and they had to redo the crown. But in the process of taking it off and putting another one on, the tooth cracked all the way through the root. So this week I went in to see what was going on and they explained it all and pulled it right then. I didn't have any milk saved up in the freezer for Seth, so I couldn't take the pain medicine they prescribed for me. That first night was really painful. It's getting better now, though. And I go back in a couple of weeks to get a permanent bridge put in.

I hurt my back last weekend. I'm not really sure what I did. But it kind of threw me off with my rhythm for how my back was getting better. I've had weird different aches and pains this week. But overall not too bad. I'm still just walking for exercise.

April 19

The kids were back to school this week. They have less than 2 months left. The year has gone so fast. Danny and Rachel had their first soccer games yesterday. They were both a little humbled after the games. Danny has moved up to the 7-9 year old league and Rachel's real soccer game was a little harder than family soccer in the living room. Last year we rewarded Danny with ice cream at Golden Spoon when he scored goals. They were both expecting that after the game, but it didn't happen yet. But they had fun. Rachel has a hard time focusing after the first half of the game or practice. She starts dancing around of digging holes with her cleats. But she comes home saying she had a great time. And we have fun watching her.

I've been doing more walking and I haven't had pain this week. Bob and I are having a competition to see who can lose some weight first. My goal is 9 lbs to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. And Bob's goal is 13 lbs. Whoever does it first gets $100 to spend on whatever they want. Bob's super serious about winning. He goes to the gym twice a day and eats the same or less than I do. I think he's going to win. But, I'm still trying to eat better and exercise when I can because I'm tired of not fitting into all my clothes.

I've been working on websites quite a bit. My New Mexico site wants their site redesigned. I like that kind of work. And it's nice to make the extra money.

April 12 - Easter

We had a great visit at my parent's house. We went to the park a lot and shopping and just relaxed at her house. We had planned to go to the beach to celebrate Danny's birthday, but it was forecast to rain most of the week there. So we went to Adventure Park (an arcade and miniature golf place). Danny seemed just fine with how it turned out. It was nice to have a change of scenery.

Then we drove home on Friday. And everyone came here that night. Our house was full. We put our kids in the closet and used all the bedrooms for other family members. We went to a movie and had pizza and just hung out around the house. We also had a combined birthday party for Danny, Casey, Ryan and my dad.

This morning for Easter we hid Easter baskets for the kids and Aaron apparently ate too much candy because he threw up during sacrament meeting. Luckily we were in the overflow on the hardwood floor so it was easy to clean up. I had to teach Relief Society today. Then we came home and had lunch and walked to the park.

Seth was blessed today too. It was nice to have my brothers and dad here to participate. Seth slept the whole time. He's such a wonderful, easy-going baby. He still sleeps well day and night. He sleeps with me and gets up a couple of times a night, but I think that's partly because he sleeps with me still. We're going to work on moving him to his bed over the next month. He takes naps easily and sleeps in his carseat in my room for most naps.

April 5

My hip is much better than last time. It turns out that when it rotates forward it's something I can control more. And if I get my muscles strong with exercise and stretching I can keep it in place. Last time it seemed like it was more the tendons that couldn't hold my hip in place because even though I did all the exercises it still didn't stay in place. So my doctor says I shouldn't need to come back unless it gets really bad again. And I haven't had much pain at all since I saw him on Tuesday. I'm really excited and hopeful. This week I'm going to start adding in some aerobic exercise like walking along with my strengthening and see how it goes.

Danny's birthday was fun on Thursday. He requested dinner at Carl's Jr. and fudge instead of birthday cake. Then we went to the church and played catch-it.

March 29

I went to the physical therapist this week. My hip is rotating again, but it's rotating forward instead of backward, which is what it did before I was pregnant. So it'll probably mean several expensive dr. appointments, but I'm hopeful that it will heal faster and not be as painful as last time because I'm being much more careful.

We went camping at Valley of fire this weekend. The kids loved it and Seth was great. We cooked hot dogs and s'mores and then had donuts and hot chocolate for breakfast. It was a little cold at night, but the kids still slept fine. And they loved exploring and going for walks. We sat in the tent at night and told stories until we were tired.

We leave this weekend for Visalia. We'll all be there for conference weekend and then Bob will leave and come back home on Monday and I'll stay with the kids until Thursday or Friday because it's spring break. Then we'll come back with my mom and Dustin and everyone will come to our house for Easter weekend and Seth's blessing.

Danny turns seven on Thursday. I can't believe it. He's such a smart, kind, competitive boy. He's always at the top of his class with all his grades. He loves all sports and just started soccer again. He plays catch-it at recess and loves to come home and tell me how well he did against the kids in his class and against the big 5th-graders. His school participates in a national online learning game called "Ticket to Read" where they get tickets for how well they read stories online and take tests on them. He was recently listed on the homepage of the website because he had such a large amount of tickets. He's also excited to be baptized in one more year. He regularly pulls out his Book of Mormon at night and reads it to himself in bed. I'm so thankful that Danny is part of our family. He's such a blessing to have around.

March 22

The kids got their pictures taken this week. I keep recent pictures of the kids on the wall and we were missing Seth, so I got them in for pictures.



Seth laughed for the first time this week. That's a lot earlier than the other kid did it. He's smiling more and is very interested in watching his mobile.

My back is still hurting so I got an appointment with my old physical therapist this week. Hopefully he'll have some good ideas for how to help it.

Bob is just about done with his Masters. He's been working so hard on his final project. He'll present it at a conference this week and then he just has to write it up and he'll be done. He's so excited to be done with school. I'm so proud of him. I know I wouldn't want to do homework right now. I already did that. It would be so hard to get myself focused to do it again.

blessing

Bob gave me a blessing last night. Here are the main points I can remember.

• I will feel the spirit palpably when I need it and spirit will work stronger in my life and the kids' lives. And it will be stronger in our home
• I will see the hand of the Lord more powerfully in my life
• I will feel content and peaceful and know that things are taken care of and provided for in my life
• I will know when to push my body and when to lay off when exercising in regard to my back and hip
• My body will fully heal from childbirth

I was hoping for a little more direct guidance for what to do for my back, but I guess I'll just have to keep praying as I go along. Another neat thing is that I was looking through my old journals to read about when I hurt my knee in college and how that healed. As I was reading, I found what I wrote from a blessing my dad gave me. It said I would receive all the blessings in my patriarchal blessing even if I didn't recognize it at the time. I'd forgotten about that. I've always wondered a little because I didn't recognize Bob when I saw him. It was just a nice confirmation that I didn't just miss out on that blessing.