I Heart My Washer

In the past couple of weeks, I have done a significant amount of laundry. With a stomach virus or 2 go around, we have had our share of throwing up, mostly by children, and 90% of the time in the middle of the night. And so even though my washer and dryer are kind of old, I can't say how glad I am I have them. Best $100 I ever spent at a garage sale! There are a few things that become necessity in my mind once you have kids, and a washer and dryer are definitely topping the list. Also making life easier, hard wood floors. No carpets to shampoo after previously mentioned illness. Makes dealing with it all that much more bearable. Hopefully we are past all this sickness now. It is a beautiful spring day today, so I am going out to work in the yard. We are attempting to landscape the yard now, that is move rock, put down grass seed, and create a garden. Maybe I will post some pictures when we have finally accomplished something. I am looking forward to having significantly less weeds, and I suppose the city is too so they can stop issuing us warning notices when the weeds are taller than 3 inches!

And the Ultrasound Says.......

Had my 20 week (ok technically 21 weeks along) ultrasound yesterday. Did all the technical stuff, measuring, looking at vital organs and all that. Then the technician asked if we wanted to know "what" the baby will be. We said of course! I had been counting down the days lately, just really wanting to know. I am not the type that can wait. So she looked around, said the baby had its legs crossed at the thighs and really wasn't being to cooperative. What a bummer! She did some more looking from all angles, and eventually said she is 90% sure it is a Girl! I know we should all be so excited, right?! But somehow, that 10% doubt, makes me not be able to really believe it. So I feel like I am right back where we started. Guess we will have to find out the "old-fashioned" way, waiting till the baby comes out. Darn, now we have to come up with a girls name and a boys name. My brother-in-law Danny believes if you ask the youngest child what the baby will be, they always get it right. So my sister asked Simon yesterday, and he said "Girl baby....a sister, not a brother." So if we are to take the word of the 2 1/2 year old, a girl it is. I am not rushing out to buy a bunch of pink things though, there are a couple of ladies in my ward anxious to give me all their baby girl stuff, so we should be prepared either way. Oh, but can I really take 19 more weeks of not knowing for sure?! Guess I will just have to!

In more baby related news, Congratulations to my older brother and his wife on their first baby! Andrew was born on the 15th and is doing well, as is his mom. I am so excited for them and hope he won't be a whole year old before I get to meet him! I will just have to find a time to go out and visit the DC area, which I really want to do, but then there is this whole Me having a baby thing..... I am sure we will make it happen at some point.

Spring is springing

Happy Easter! April is shaping up to be a really busy month. Eli has started soccer and is enjoying it. His first game (actually it was the second as the first was cancelled because of the snow last week) was on Saturday, and was wet and miserable! But I guess that is the way it goes with spring soccer. He did a great job and Simon and I managed to stay pretty warm by watching the game from the car. We have lots of church and school activities coming up to keep us busy too. Joe is having a luau with his art club this coming Friday (as long as they get out there and sell the tickets). Then I am helping with a Daddy-Daughter luau at the church on Saturday. Lots of fun Hawaiian festivities going on. On the 22nd is our ultrasound to see the baby and hopefully find out the sex. We will have to let you all know. My older brother's baby is set to arrive on Wednesday (it is scheduled) and we are so excited for him. Lots of spring babies being born!

I just have to give a little blurb about a fun book I read last week. It is called "Letters from Rapunzel." It is technically a kids book, but I sure enjoyed it. The writing was creative and clever and left me feeling very hopeful and happy. Check it out if you are looking for a fun, quick read.

Spring Break

I said I would post pictures from our little spring break trip to Albuquerque, so here they are. We had lots of fun, and the kids did great in the car. It wasn't too bad of a drive. Simon was kind of sick for part of it (even though he was already on antibiotics) but he managed to recover and make it through.

We went to the museum of natural history and saw lots of cool things, including their dinosaurs. Here is Eli next to a nest of dinosaur eggs.





And here is Simon being very concerned during the exhibit about the extinction of the dinosaurs.

We also went to the zoo, which the kids thought was lots of fun. Here is my nephew Ayden posting next to some kind of bird. And then all the boys on the lizard statue.

We also went to Santa Fe and saw the old parts of the city. Kind of cool to look at, but the kids were somewhat bored. Guess historical sites just don't interest them yet. But then we went minature golfing and played in a nickle arcade, and they loved that.
We found the Albuquerque temple and walked around the grounds. It is a smaller temple, but of course still beautiful. (Simon and Cayde were asleep in the cars.)



Every day after all the adventures we went swimming in the hotel pool, and of course enjoyed the hot tub (well mostly my legs enjoyed the hot tub, but you know....)

We all had lots of fun, then came home and enjoyed the rest of spring break. It was fun to have time to do family things! Now we are back to school and all the other things. Eli is starting soccer this week, and April looks to be a pretty busy month. Hopefully spring will come soon and stay. So far it is teasing us with one nice day, and the next being a blizzard. Guess that is spring in Colorado for ya!

The Power of Advertising

On our way back from Albuquerque, in the car at lunch time:

• Me (on the phone to the other car): Yeah we like Wendy' better than McDonalds
  
• Eli (from the back seat): Yeah, yeah Wendy's! Its WAY better than fast food!

And that is how marketing works.

Viruses, AAAHHH!

I have been "offline" for 10 days or so because our computer got a nasty virus. The kind that hides and replicates itself, and requires professional intervention that costs $$$! Yuck. And I thought taking myself to the doctor was expensive. Anyway, so finally our computer is virus free and I hope that we don't repeat that scenario any time soon. I guess I consider us lucky that up until this point we have never had anything major like that happen, especially with all the junk that seems to be out there. It is somewhat mind boggling the extent of the Internet and what it can do, with which comes a host of malicious people that want to take advantage of unsuspecting, unaware, unprotected individuals. I did miss being able to look things up on the computer whenever I wanted, but that faded and in actuality it was a little nice be "unconnected" for a bit. I hope none of you have to deal with nasty computer viruses like the one we got. It was not nice, rather disconcerting, and we felt violated. I don't think any of our personal information was stolen or anything and fortunately I also didn't miss any work. In fact, I was battling strep and then a cold during the computer's infection. I sure am sick of being sick! And my kids too. I wish we could all just be healthy! I am looking forward to spring and summer, which it feels like spring already. I wonder if there will be any big spring snows to make up for the lack of winter snow?

We are off to Albuquerque on Saturday. We decided to get out of town for part of Spring Break coming up next week. We wanted somewhere we could drive in a day, somewhere new. So Albuquerque is it. We have looked up lots of stuff to do, so we should be able to stay plenty busy during our couple of days there. Look for pictures from our trip on the next post.

Announcement

So here it is for all the world to know now, we are expecting! I am sure some of you already know, because we told you, or you heard through the grapevine....anyway, it is true. We are expecting another baby September 1st. Things have been going well so far. I haven't been too sick, just a little nauseous at times. I do have some cravings, pickles (I know so cliche!), and an aversion to chicken. Can't stand it! So I eat a lot more red meat these days, which I think helps my iron content, maybe I won't be anemic this time.

Eli is excited, I don't think Simon understands. In fact it was really funny when we told the boys, I said "We are going to expand our family" and Simon said "No expand family!" Of course he didn't have any idea what he was saying, but it was very amusing. Hopefully he doesn't really feel that way. Eli really wants a girl, but of course the track record for Marlers heavily favors a boy. We will know towards the end of April and will be sure to let you all know. It will be an adventure having another one! We have some fixing up of the house to do this summer in preparation, not to mention the purchase of a bigger vehicle. If you have any suggestions in that department, please feel free to share!