I can’t take it with me…but I can take HIM with me!

As we are preparing to move to our new-to-us home I have developed a new motto “it’s just stuff.”  This has empowered me to part with many things that I have been holding on to.  I have already thrown away and given away many things, most of which I already forgot I had and will never miss. I keep thinking about the slightly short-on-storage house and then I just give/throw away what ever I am holding. 

One closet cleaning lead me to my old ballet costumes.  After 16 years of dancing I had quite the accumulation of lovely costumes  They had been taking up almost half of Boston’s closet and finally I sat down and looked at them and picked a few out to give away.  The rest (the prettiest), I stored carefully in a new plastic tub along with various Halloween costumes, snapped the side handles/clasps shut and carefully labeled it “costumes.”  If I should ever be blessed with a little girl, she would love to play in them.

We took a load of boxes over to the new house tonight.  The costume tub was placed on the top of the stack and we went on our merry way.  Upon arrival, I noticed a maroon bit of fabric draped across the top of the load and my eyes trialed up to the now lidless costume box.  To my horror the tub was now half empty (definitely NOT half full) – and what should be missing but the three lovely ballet costumes that I had placed on top!  Somewhere along the 10 mile drive, the lid had blown off and I lost my costumes!  I cried because I was so sad and frustrated that chance would have it that that tub would be on top instead of a box that was taped closed or full of replaceable things.  But no, it had to be the ballet costumes.

On our way home we retraced our route going 35-40 mph instead of the usual 45-55 mph, carefully scanning the side of the road for any sign of the costumes.  We found a gold sash for an ugly pirate costume I made myself, a lace hair piece that went with one of the costumes, and the lid of the box.  NO costumes.  Twenty years of careful preservation and poof – gone.  This is when I have to tell myself over and over, “it’s only stuff…you  can’t take it with you.”

Now to the positive side of the story.  Scott is going on a backpacking trip tomorrow and so he ran to the store pick up a few things after our return home.  He was gone for a long time and when he got back he said, “someone took them.”  “Huh?”  He then proceeded to tell me how he drove all the way back to the other house and searched for the costumes again!  He is now convinced that someone saw them beside the road and picked them up.  I hope whoever found them has a darling little girl who is on cloud nine playing with her pretty ballet costumes.

What a sweet, devoted husband I have!  He felt so bad about me loosing my ballet costumes that he spent a good 40 minutes searching for them again.  It is now 11:40 pm and he is still trying to get everything ready for his trip.  So tonight I lost some valued possessions but was reminded of what a treasure I have in my wonderful, supportive and thoughtful husband.  I love him so much!  What a blessing it is that the real treasure, my husband and family, I CAN take with me!

Suddenly I realized that Easter was a month ago

I was looking at my blog and realized that my last post was about Easter…kind of the same thing as having my Easter decorations out until just a few days ago!  Ha ha!  I have been pretty preoccupied and busy lately.  We are going to be moving in July and that fact has taken over my life and completely consumed my brain.  I find my self going back and forth between the plan of cleaning and organizing the whole house before I pack up or organizing and tossing clutter as I pack.  At the rate I am going it will definitely be organizing and packing at the same time but that bugs me for some reason. 

I am excited for the change that the move will bring but also very very sad because we love our ward and our neighborhood.  We are moving just 20 minutes across town to the middle of Mesa  - Gilbert and Southern.  We will actually be renting a house in Scott’s parents ward!  There are a lot of pros and cons to the whole thing but I have to say that the most exciting part is that we will finally have a big backyard for the boys to play in!  Also, we will be so much closer to both of our families which is nice since we spend so much time driving back and forth across town visiting them. 

We have done a whole bunch of other stuff the last month (or two?) but I will have to upload the pictures to remember everything.  That is why I must blog – otherwise I would never remember anything!

The Easter Egg Hunt and the (totally unrelated) Cursed Jello Salad

This post will not be filled with darling pictures of my children picking up Easter eggs or posed in brilliant green grass wearing matching springy colors.  I just wanted to write about our ward Easter egg hunt and the cursed jello salad.

Ward Easter Egg Hunt and Potluck Picnic:

Since it was my idea (no activities committee anymore you know) me and my counselors planned it – I have never had to plan a ward party – only Primary activity days!

We had it on Friday night at the church since in Arizona, outdoor picnics at this time of year are rather sweaty.

We stuffed almost 500 plastic eggs with candy throughout the week.  (I heard a rumor that a ward in our stake had an Easter egg hunt with 5,000 eggs!  What the heck???  Is that even possible?)

Everyone brought blankets and sat on the floor in cultural hall.

Yes, it was a potluck.  I tried reeeaaaallly hard to convince the men in ward council that it wasn’t necessary to feed everyone at each ward party but they reeeaaaallly wanted food there.

We all but ran out of food.  Quite a few people came who didn’t bring a dish to share, which is fine if you are not planning on eating and/or feeding your 3 children….  Others brought food but when your assignment is “main dish” and you show up with desert (no matter how scrumptious) it just doesn’t quite cut it.  So my wonderful new counselor rushed out on an emergency pizza run.

Thanks to Scott and a few other men who were trying to avoid the chaos inside, all of the eggs were hidden around the church building.  No, it is not too hot here for an outdoor egg hunt as long as you are only outside for a short time, as the sun is going down, and there is not any chocolate in the eggs!

I was shocked at how many people came to the party – well over a hundred which is excellent for our ward. 

Finally we turned them loose on the lawn – ages 0-3 in one area and the older kids in a different area.  This is where you should picture adorable pictures of my children with their Easter baskets full of brightly colored eggs:

 

Can’t you just picture them?  Ahh yes, since Scott and I were so busy we got no pictures of the party at all!  Sad day.  Luckily, they get a second hunt at Grandma Smith’s house tonight maybe we will snap a few pictures then.

Can I just say that I am so glad that party is over??

 

The Cursed Jello Salad:

Have you ever had that scrumptious jello salad with the pretzels, creamy stuff and strawberries?  It is so very yummy.  One website accurately describes it as “An unholy marriage between pretzels and JELL-O, with a healthy dose of Cool Whip and cream cheese spread on for good measure.” 

Somehow Scott and I have become the official jello salad makers for both of our families.  This recipe is usually requested at Thanksgiving and Easter and when I ask “is there anything I can bring?”  It usually goes something like this….”oh, umm, you know what sounds good is that pretzel jello salad.”  So, like a dummy I say “sure thing!”  It is not my recipe – I don’t even know where it came from and while it seems simple, it NEVER is.  Literally every time we make this salad something goes wrong:

• forgot to buy ingredient = late night trip to Walmart
• can’t find recipe = frantic search through every paper in my messy collection of recipes
• pretzels are not crushed enough = horrible texture
• failure to seal cream mixture over pretzels before pouring jello on top = jello leaking into pretzels and a soggy, gross texture

Since this Easter is the last one at home for my brother-in-law, Dylan, before he leaves on his mission, we decided to humor him by bringing his favorite pretzel jello salad.  We figured that we have made every mistake in the book on this one already so we should have it down to a science.  So, late last night (maybe that is the source of our trouble – trying to cook at 9 or 10 at night?) we began the labor.  Everything was going very well.  We had all the right ingredients, the pretzels were crushed to a perfect texture, we even planned it out so the jello would be partially set before pouring it over the creamy stuff, preventing breakthroughs to the pretzels. 

Then, it happened.  A little misread and three cups of sugar mixed with cream cheese and cool whip later (instead of 3/4 cup sugar) we had a veeerrry sweet goo, totally unpalatable and unusable. 

• three cups of sugar instead of 3/4 cups = late night trip to Walmart for cool whip and cream cheese

All I could do was laugh and laugh.  I don’t think we will ever make this stuff again!  And no, I am not going to share the recipe with you.  You can google it if you are a glutton for punishment.  Besides, our copy of the recipe is obviously cursed and you don’t want any part of that!

Boston is two!

A few days before his birthday we redeemed his free kids meal at Red Robin…he loved the balloon they gave him but couldn’t figure out why all of those people were singing to him!

 

We had a family party at my mom’s house.  She made some of her scrumptious homemade pizza.  I helped a little too – hence the tractor apron.  What other kind of apron does a mom of two boys wear?

 

Waiting for his pizza….

 

King for the day in his new “Cars” chair.

 

Who needs toys when you have giant monster bags?

 

Always the clown…

 

Checking out his giraffe cake and smiling affably as we sing “Happy Birthday.”

 

Yellow buttercream frosting with orange fondant spots.

 

He was very intense about the candle blowing – here is is taking a very deep breath.

 

He blew them out in one try!

 

I know everyone says it as their kids grow up, but seriously, where the heck did my baby go?  I still think of him as “baby Boston.”  He is such a joy in our family and we are so glad he joined us two years ago. 

Proof!

You know that feeling mothers get when their baby is growing up and everyone starts referring to their baby as a little boy or a little girl instead of a baby?  Call it denial, call it nostalgia, I was really having a hard time with it until I walked into the den and found Boston thus occupied:

I think it should be clear to anyone that Boston is still a baby!

He kept saying “awww baby.”

In case you were wondering we had lent the infant seat to a friend for a few days…it was waiting its return to storage.

No one can deny his baby status! 

 

Okay, maybe his developing personality indicates that he really is growing up as proven by the following:

Mmmmmm Peanut butter sandwich!

Hair style: courtesy of Uncle Allen.

Maniacal facial expression: 100% Boston!

This little guy is seriously bursting with personality.  He is so goofy, and mischeivous.  I remember when I was pregnant with him I was blow drying my hair one day and out of the blue a clear strong impression came to me, “This baby is going to make us laugh.”  I turned to Scott and told him right away about that impression.  We are finding it to be true more and more as he grows.

Moustache March

In case you weren’t aware, it is Moustache March.  A few of the Smith men are known for their exceedingly hairy upper lips (think Mario and Luigi) Scott, his brother Josh, and their Dad all have what we have dubbed the “Smithstache.”  So a pact was made to grow out their facial hair for the month just to see what it would look like.    Here are the results which are somewhat frightening - if you have a fear of moustaches avert your eyes!

Scott was asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting and so he had to break the pact after only 10 days…also, it is apparently painful for him to have facial hair like this!  Yeah, that is only after 10 days!

 

Travis clearly won the “Frenchie” award.

 

Josh has an excellent “Smithstache” – he probably looked the most comfortable with the new look.

 

Dylan is the youngest…I don’t think he really inherited the “Smithsache.”  He clearly embraced the look however….

 

Unfortunately, Scott wasn’t in these photos since he had already shaved at this point.  Overall, I think I prefer clean shaven faces and I am not sad to bid Moustache March farewell!

Forts, Fat Lips, Friends and Footprints

Stephen is very proud of his Lego numbers 1-3 that he made almost entirely on his own – that number 2 is a tricky one!



Stephen's first major wreck on his bike resulted in this awesome fat lip.  He landed on his back (so glad he was wearing his helmet) and the handle bar caught him in the mouth.  Ouch!


We enjoyed a visit from the California cousins (my brother’s family).  They all decided to hold hands at the mall without any adult guidance.  Stephen and Anna are the best of friends and play together so well.  Boston and Jeremiah are starting to figure out the friend thing, though they are pretty competitive about most things still.  Especially when it comes to attention from Grandpa and Grandma.  Such cuties!


During the visit the boys learned about blanket forts.  This is one that existed in our living room for almost a week before we (Scott and I!) couldn’t stand it anymore.

Peeking in the front door…

Lunch is exceptionally more tasty when eaten in a fort.

We went on a little outdoor adventure with some friends from our ward at Usery Pass Park, which is in the desert about a half hour from here.

Here is what it looks like at Usery Pass – it is the wilderness.  I love it!

 It was unseasonably warm that day but that didn’t stop the boys from searching for the Javelina footprints along a sandy wash.  They were only able to find one print but hey – it was still pretty fun.  We then had a picnic and played at one of the playgrounds in the park.  Boston ended up with a few cactus spines in his pant leg – not his first encounter with cactus.  I don’t get it – Stephen is four and a half and I have never pulled spines out of him and yet Boston has had run-ins with them twice in two years!  Even after you pull the spines out, they leave sore red spots for a day or two.



Maybe over there?

I think we are on to something…

Really, these are all the highlights from March, mostly we just do the hum drum, sit around at home thing but who wants to read about that?