trying out new kicks

this is pace's fourth pair of shoes, not because he has worn through the shoes, but because his feet keep growing!  he is now in size six (for toddlers)...hopefully baby #2 will be able to wear some hand-me-down kicks!

playing outside

pace loves, loves, loves playing outside.  i am so glad the weather is changing so we don't have to bundle up with hats, gloves, coats, etc.  there is nothing better to pace than sitting on the front porch watching for birds, motorcycles, busses, or big trucks pass by.  the second best thing is throwing a tennis ball down the walkway or at the garage door.  i just love how happy pace looks in these photos, how tightly and trustingly he holds my finger when we walk around the house, and how big he's getting--my little boy is all grown up!  and there's a photo of growing baby#2 for good measure.  yes, we're sure there's only one baby in there, although it looks and feels as though there are two.

cheeziz

i finally got around to reading the march ensign the other day.  there was a great article by a mom with an 18-month old suggesting using the nursery manual as a family home evening guide with your little ones.  david and i decided we would start that with pace on sundays instead of a usual bedtime story.  we haven't been the most consistent with fhe as a married couple (consistent as in we haven't had fhe together since our first year of marriage...), so we are looking forward to starting this with pace.

we have family prayer with pace, church on sundays, we look through a "church book" with him--church clip art to keep him occupied at church, and recently we started reading the illustrated scripture stories with him (thanks, mom!).  my mom sent these out to us, and we've started reading the book of mormon stories with him during breakfast.  pace is captivated by the pictures, and we read an abbreviated version of the captions.  all in all, i think we have a pretty peaceful home, but we haven't really pushed a huge "jesus exposure" yet.  

so the other day pace and i went to the distribution center to pick up the nursery manual.  the primary manuals were on the back wall, and we had to walk past the wall of photos of the first presidency, paintings of jesus, etc.  as we are walking, pace runs up to harry anderson's painting of Christ in gethsemane, points, and says, "cheeziz!"  and then runs to another painting of Christ and points again, and says, "cheeziz!" 

this simply warmed my heart.  my little boy recognized a painting of the Savior.

when i told david about it later that day, he said, "oh--we read the story of king benjamin's speech today at breakfast, and that painting of Christ in gethsemane was one of the pictures in the book!  i told pace it was jesus praying."  [i have been helping a friend with iv antibiotics every morning, so i've missed breakfast time as i'm at her house from 7-8].  how neat that pace remembered and applied what he'd seen that morning!

i am excited for the home evenings where we can testify to our children that Jesus didn't just pray, but that he prayed specifically for them, knows them by name, and wants them to remember him in their thoughts and actions.  i am excited for the time when we can discuss the plan of salvation, and the mercy and justice it brings to this earth.  i am excited for the easter sundays when we'll get to share our excitement regarding an empty tomb.

I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.

On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful storms lashed at the earth.

Those evil men who sought His life rejoiced. Now that Jesus was no more, surely those who followed Him would disperse. On that day they stood triumphant.

On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.

Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon the cross.

On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.

On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled.

It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.

I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.

But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.

-Elder Wirthlin, Sunday Will Come, October 2006 General Conference

give the monkey a kiss

my mom sent out a little package for pace.  one of the items inside was an adorable stuffed monkey--and she packed it so its face was looking straight up at you when you opened the box.  pace thought this was the coolest thing on earth!  he pulled it out and immediately gave it a hug and cuddle, as with all things small, soft, and stuffed.  one morning i thought i'd try and get pace giving his monkey a kiss to send photos to my mom.  the first time he kissed it, i was a millisecond too slow catching it on the camera, and when i asked pace to do it again, he simply replied, "no."  

yes, pace has mastered replying "no":  "pace, have one last bite of dinner."  "no."  "pace, come upstairs to brush teeth and get ready for bed."  "no."  "pace, are you thirsty?  would you like a drink?"  "no."  and he does it in such a simple, sweet voice--he isn't being naughty, or demanding, or overtly disobedient--he's honestly communicating.  so what can you do?!  we try to rephrase it, or turn it into a game, which has worked so far...

so when i tried to get him to kiss the monkey a second time, i had to turn it into a hide-and-seek game with the monkey hiding behind the corner of the wall, and coax pace into coming over and playing with the monkey.  he ran away the first few times the monkey popped out from behind the corner, then he became interested in pointing out the monkey's eyes, nose, and mouth, and then--finally--winner!

time for another haircut?

are you kidding me?...3 more months?!

at the end of february, my only thought was, "are you kidding me?!  three more months to go before meeting baby #2?!"  i'm not counting the month of june at all since baby's due date is june 2, so at that point in time, i still had all of march, april, and may to look at.  has anyone else felt like they've been pregnant forever with their second pregnancy?  then i thought--ok, i have got to finish  art project #1, start and finish art project #2 (because we all know projects will be put on hold for another 4-6 months once baby comes), and finish pace's baby book (because shouldn't baby #1's baby book be finished before baby #2 comes?!).  Three projects for three months.  i can do that.  and voila--here we are with only 8 weeks to go!  

art project #1:  16x20 mixed medium (acrylic and oil):  my brother's sister-in-law asked for a tree with a bird cage and bird flying out.  i used a photo of a tree i'd taken years and years ago, made b+w copies and turned them into acrylic lifts.  i cobbled the lifts together to make a single tree.  cage and bird are also lifts.  i put shredded pieces of dictionary pages under the tree because i thought it'd make it look "barky". 

art project #2: 30x40 oils, van gogh rip-off.  my brother requested a reproduction of van gogh's irises.  when he asked, my first thought was, "is that legal?!'  but i guess i will be signing my name, not his...so, here are a few shots of the work in progress.  my deadline is to get in done by april so it'll have enough time to dry and mail out to them, and i can use may to finish pace's baby book.  i'm happy with it so far--i like the brilliance of colors.  it seems like a happy canvas to me.  pace has been great walking around the new addition in our library/computer room.  he knows mama is painting "bowers" (his word for flowers), and knows not to touch it, and happily walks around the easel to get to the window or his toys and books.  

so...cheers to 8 more weeks! 

david's vacation week

vacation weeks at ups are a hassle to go through, to say the least.  it's all seniority based, with the vacation calendar starting at the top and working its way down.  by the time it gets to the bottom of the pack, all the good vacation weeks are already taken (ie, the entire summer), and we're left with random weeks in february or march, sometimes may.  and then there's no guarantee you'll get the week off you signed up for because someone with more seniority within your group may have signed up for the same week, so it'll be theirs, not yours.  so anyway, david found out the thursday before the last week of february that he had that week off for vacation.  talk about good timing, actually!  the only week this whole year we've actually had some snow, and david got it off!  he used all three of his free ski passes he got (courtesy purchasing a water pack at costco) and hit the hills with a friend, and took his teachers quorum from church on a campout in moab.  in between all that fun, we played with pace every day and had some movie nights.  david said he felt like he actually had a vacation! 

at the campsite in arches national park.  they got down to moab, set up camp, and then went on a night hike on a quick trail right off the campsite.  he said it was amazing to see the arches lit up with their flashlights while having the sky full of stars overhead.  it was also very, very cold--got down to a mere 8 degrees that night.  everyone stayed as warm as one can be during 8 degrees of nighttime desert warmth, but a couple of the boys were sure they'd woken up with frostbitten fingers.  the next day they had breakfast and did the devil's garden hike with 8-10 arches along the way, and then topped off the day hiking to the delicate arch.  they were all exhausted!

visit to the library

we went to the library the other day for david to find some books on photography.  pace loved running around the children's section--

he found a place to sit,

found circles on the floor,

found "bowers" in the beautiful stain glass windows (and some fake ones hanging out, too)

and little chairs and tables just his size.  he probably spent a good 20-30 minutes just pushing the chairs around to his liking.  then a little girl came over with two books on halloween.  she had fun showing them to pace, and he thought the pictures were pretty cool.

there was a picture of a cat, and when we asked him what a cat says, he made this face.  no noises to accompany the face.  this is usually the face he pulls when we ask him what sound a dinosaur makes, and then he accompanies it with a few pretty good growls.  i think he just gets so excited sometimes about signs or sounds or words he knows, he just pulls one out of his back pocket, and realizes later it maybe wasn't the matching sign/sound/word.