Ralphie

This is Ralphie, our very sweet, very old, mostly deaf and blind dog. It may look a little awkward, but he really is quite comfortable. Here he is relaxing after being bathed and having his nails trimmed. (Rich has become quite the groomer over the years.) That can be a little stressful for Ralphie so he's getting some TLC from the mama.

A tummy rub will make almost anything better.

I do love this boy.

Swimmers take your mark!

It's official. We now have competitive swimmers in the family. On Saturday, Sarah and Emily participated in their first swim meet! They started in February with a swim team and they are having lots of fun. They practice 3 days a week for one hour and they don't just float around... they swim hard.

Here are some of the highlights from the meet. Double click the photos to get a larger image.

Emily is on the left in the green cap. Sarah is next to her in the blue cap. The facility was great as far as views were concerned. Not so great for spectator comfort. (Warm & muggy, close quarters topped off by bum numbing, backrest free concrete seating. It's not bad for the first two hours, but the last hour and a half was touch and go.)

Em climbing up to get into the pool to start her first race. The younger swimmers only swim for 25 yards and start in the pool.

Miss Emily going to town on the backstroke.

(top lane on the screen. I need a better zoom lens)


Emily rocking the breast stroke!

Sarah getting ready for her first race.

Poised to fly.

Sarah slicing through the water with her excellent breaststroke.

Both Emily and Sarah were great competitors and showed wonderful sportsmanship. It was a little scary to do this new thing and they both kept good attitudes. It also didn't hurt that they had their cousins showing them the ropes. Thanks Maddie and Hillary! We now have some ribbons to display. Congratulations! We're awfully proud of you!

Easter Sunday

We had the most beautiful weather Easter Sunday. The sun was shining for most of the day. We went to church, then came home to find some eggs. It's always a treat to see our darling girls fly across the lawn in their new Easter dresses.

This is Emily's basket and her found eggs.

"How many did you find?"

Em & Sarah at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Grandma and her girls.

Connie, Tony and Megan

The cousins minus Clark & Chase

It was a very happy Easter for us.

Hope everyone else had a joyous Easter as well.

A Spring Baby

Happy Birthday Husband!

(Rich is making 47 look mighty good)

Here's to another wonderful year. Love you!

Rite of Spring

The day before Easter you should...

a. Work outside to rid the yard of any weeds or errant litter that may have blown onto your property thereby detracting from the Easter Sunday photo ops.

b. Ensure Easter dresses, sweaters, shoes etc. are present and accounted for.

c. Remove all chipped and otherwise nasty nail polish remants and apply fresh spring color to anyone in family who will be wearing open toed shoes on Sunday.

d. Hardboil two dozen eggs and get the vinegar out.

e. All of the above and then some.

The day before Easter is always a little busy but a joy nonetheless. One of my favorite activities is the annual dying of the eggs. I loved this as a child and I still do.

Its fun for me to watch Emily and Sarah do their own things. Here they are side by side... similar and different. Its great.

This is probably my favorite Easter egg color.

I love the colors of Easter.

fresh

hopeful

alive

renewed

Sunshine and Cinnamon rolls

Amazingly, the weather on General Conference Sunday was gorgeous, and for an all too brief period of time the sunshine poured into our home. This is something that not just the humans in our house get excited about. Our sweet dog Ralphie will use any means necessary to get and stay toasty warm. Here are some of the tried and true maneuvers:

Sun Spots - these are greatly desired by Ralphie and sometimes disconcerting to his family. During the warmer months when Ralphie is in the yard 'laying out' I occasionally have to look very closely to make sure he's still breathing. I found Ralphie under this bench on Sunday.

Nesting - This is one of my favorites. It's just one of life's simple pleasures to watch a dog scratch and turn and paw and lay down and then get back up to scratch and paw and turn, turn before finally laying down for real. Ralphie has his own appointed bedding in the basement and a little soft thing on the floor in the kitchen where he can lay with his nose pressed up against the heat register. Sadly, in this photo, Ralphie is using Emily's all too available comforter. This is what happens when you don't make your bed. Stinky linens.

Lap Time - I'm a pushover. I know. So is Rich. Being a Boston Terrier has some perks. It means he's small enough to fit on a lap. I usually do blog reading and writing at night after the girls are in bed. Ralphie follows me to the computer and paws at me and begs with his big browns until sometimes I pick him up and love him for a while. He is such a sweet old boy. What a face.

General Conference Sunday brought another unexpected surprise (the first being actual sunshine.) I made my first ever cinnamon rolls. In fact, first ever rolls of any kind. My sister Tatiana has perfected the most heavenly, light and tasty rolls I've ever scarfed. She is so good at the roll thing and I was very seriously considering leaving it to the experts. But Sarah dragged me to an Enrichment Activity where a sister in the ward demonstrated how to make rolls. (Sad when your 12 year old is making sure you get to R.S. "Mom, they said anyone could go and learn!") It was a fun evening and quite comforting to learn how many other women have no clue what to do with yeast. We went, we learned, we were motivated and we gave it a try.

Ta Da!!

We've decided it will be a General Conference tradition to have cinnamon rolls for the Sunday morning session. We're hoping the sunshine will want to join us.

Artists in residence

Last Saturday Emily got out the paint by numbers kit her aunt and uncle gave her for her birthday. She got started and enjoyed it so much she could hardly put it down. Emily is very artistic and I love to see what flows out of her imaginative mind. I didn't know how she would like being confined to numbers and boundaries but she loved it! I think she really enjoyed mixing paints to get the colors she needed. She pointed out that it would be much easier to paint correctly if she had "one of those things that make it stand up for you". Oh... an easel. We'll get that on the list for Christmas.

Here she is pointing out how she is going to make the horse's eye more realistic

looking. She did too. It looks amazing!

Rich is also an artist, but his medium this day was copper pipe and new kitchen faucet hardware. Love, love, love this man! He can maintain, repair, construct or replace just about anything. ...an extremely attractive quality in a spouse. I'm one very lucky girl.

He's also pretty darned handsome. "Are you going to blog me?" Yes, I think I will.

He's a keeper for sure.

Off to the Ballet

Sarah had the opportunity to attend the Ballet with her grandparents last Friday night. Ballet West performed The Prodigal Son, Les Biches and another short Russian one. Sarah is still talking about it. She loved it!

Here she is all dressed up and waiting for G&G.

Sadly, the handsome prince in the car (Grandpa) couldn't be seen very well in this pic. Trust me, he's handsome. But here is my lovely mother. How fun to have two beautiful ladies on my front porch! A good time was had by all.

Thanks Mom and Dad.

Gone with the Schwinn

Emily's big surprise birthday present last week was a new bicycle. It's a honey. Blue, white and silver with shock absorbers everywhere and 21 speeds to get her up and down any hills we may find on our next trip to St. George. The weather has been so Northern Utah springy that Em had to wait a few days before taking it out for its maiden ride.

Check out that grin

A bike is a wonderful thing.

We love our darling Emily

Em's B-day at G&G

Sunday was Emily's actual birthday and so dinner at G&G's was a fun celebration. Here are Henry and Emily warming up for the big song. It's almost cake time.

This year, Em requested a shark cake. She wanted Grandma to make it look like there was a shark in her cake. (Rich had to remind me that she wrote a report about sharks this year) Here she is posing with our grandma/baker extraordinaire.

Sarah gave Emily a book she'd been eyeing each time we went to Barnes and Noble. The Lost Case Files of Nancy Drew. Emily was so happy! "The last will and testament of Josiah Crowley!!" I'm sure it's pertinent to a case needing to be solved.

Em's mouth is agape because her daddy is wheeling in her new bicycle. Wahoo!! This is especially fun because she'd just opened a present from Aunt Connie and Uncle Tony (a bike lock) and she didn't have anything to lock up with it. Now she does :)

That's a happy nine year old.

Happy Birthday Emmy. We love you!

Princess for a day

It's tradition in our home to treat the birthday boy or girl to breakfast in bed. This year Emily requested OJ, sausage and German pancakes. When she tasted the sausage she said, "Mmmm. This sausage is so good! I love anything breakfasty that comes from pig." She's such fun. And you are correct in assuming that none of us here are vegetarians.

If you can believe it, Emily got sick again the day before her birthday, right after her swim party. Fever, aches, chills and right on into a cold. She woke up on her birthday ready to eat... thankfully the fever was gone. She had a nasty cold for the next few days.

My sweet pea is nine!

Emily's Party

Last week we celebrated Emily's 9th birthday. I can't believe how quickly she's growing up!

Here are some pics from her birthday party with friends. They had cake and ice cream first.

She meant business with those candles.

Present time!

Emily invited a fun bunch of girls!

After all the presents we were off to the pool. They swam till they were shriveled. It was a fun day.