Good Bye, Treasure Ship

The Treasure Ship is one of my favorite restaurants.  It is one of the first places Ray took me when I came her to visit before we got married.  We started going every year for our anniversary.  Then two years ago it was closed because of the threat of a hurricane and so we started going to another restaurant, however, we still went there at least once a year.  I loved the blackened Mahi Mahi.  Yesterday in a stairwell a fire started and quickly spread through the whole ship (it's right on the water, shaped like a huge pirate ship) and gutted the whole thing.  The owner didn't sound too hopeful of rebuilding.  I will surely miss it.

Ugly Words

Sheila's bus driver informed me this afternoon that Sheila was using some really ugly words this morning on the bus.  I was shocked.  She has never said those words at home and Ray and I do not use those words.  We don't watch any shows that use those words frequently.  Sheila really doesn't watch TV anyway besides cartoons.  If a show has too many ugly words I turn it off.  I can't stand to watch shows, no matter how funny they are, that use that kind of language.

At first I think Sheila thought she was in trouble because she would just answer, "I can't know" when I asked her who she heard say those words.  She rides the bus with kids all the way up to sixth grade but they have a good bus driver and so I am sure he doesn't let them use that language.

After I talked to her about how they were bad/ugly words and that they are very mean to say to people.  I told her what the one word meant but the other she is too young to know.  I asked her if she would say them again and she said no.  I then told her if someone wanted her to say those words to tell them "They are dirty words and I don't put dirty words in my mouth."

Finally when I was telling Ray about it on the phone she told me she heard two of her classmates use those words.  I just can't believe little five year olds know those words.  I thought I would eventually have to deal with them picking up something worse (Timmy picked up the D word but we pretty much got that stopped) but I didn't think it would happen until they were way older.  I told Sheila that she wasn't in trouble but now that she knows not to use those words that if I heard that she used them again that she would be in trouble.

Friday Fill ins

I hadn't done one of these in a long time but thought I would get a go today.

1. Where is my motivation?
2. If wishes were horses I'd probably wouldn't have any.
3. I'd like to see the world.
4. When I was a teen, I thought being a mother would be easy if I could reason with my kids.  News flash: kids don't reason.
5. One of my mother's favorite sayings was "Do you want to walk?  I'll pull this car over and you can walk if you don't stop fighting."
6. I'd have a hard time doing without my husband. He's at a five week school (comes home for the weekends) and it's driving me crazy.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to seeing my husband, tomorrow my plans include taking a long nap, attending some baptisms, and going to a combined ward luau and Sunday, I want to go to church and get another nap!

Time for Strawberry Picking

The local strawberry farm opened late this year because of the abnormal cold winter and so we went out on the first Saturday but for some reason they were closed for the day so we went again Monday and Sheila was at school.  We plan to go again next weekend so Sheila can pick some too.  We had a lot of fun picking.  Timmy at least didn't try to pick and eat all the green ones like last year and he only ate one or two instead of everything he picked.  We got about 10 pounds.  I made 9 jars of freezer jam, made a cake and a salad, plus feed the kids strawberries at dinner all last week and park of the week.  I plan to get another 10 pounds next time around too.

Ray started out with Kimberly in the snuggli on the front but then we put her on his back so he could squat down and she fell asleep sucking her thumb.

Kimberly's First Day at the Beach

Finally made it out to the beach for the first time this year a couple of Saturdays ago.  Kimberly loved it.  I sewed two beach towels together to make a blanket and that is where I put Kimberly and for some odd reason Timmy didn't want to play in the sand for the first hour so he sat there too.

It was too cold to go in the water but they insisted on blowing up their tubes anyway.  Although Sheila did seem interested in going in.  I plan to get her swimming lessons (and hopefully Timmy too) this summer when we get back from vacation.

Daddy helped Sheila build a sand castle. It was the perfect weather for the beach.  Ray flew his kite for a little bit but the kid's weren't too interested in that. It was warm but not too hot and a nice breeze.  A lot of people were out on the beach that day but we were on the base's beach and so it's never crowded even when there is a lot of people.

Meet Penny

The lease on Ray's work car was almost up (he talked me into a lease, we will never do that again) so he has been looking for a new car.  This last weekend we test drove the Kia Forte.  It was one of his top three.  They gave us the perfect deal and so we bought the car.  We will be buying and not leasing this one.

I named her Penny because she is copper just like a penny.  She is a 2010 Kia Forte SX.  Yes we have gotten two new cars in three months but we plan on keeping both of these cars for a long time. Oh and we got this car for a smaller payment then the lease so she is well in our budget.

Ray's promotion ceremony

Here are some pictures from Ray's promotion ceremony.

I got to help pin on the stripes.  They really just have double sided tape on them.  Then everyone with that rank and above comes up and helps pin them on by slugging them in the stripes (on the arms.)  Ray then gave a little speech and Timmy stole the show by showing off in front of his dad.  Sheila was in school but other than that we were all there.

First Food (other than mommy's milk)

After months, okay maybe not months since I am only almost six months old, of salivating over my family putting weird shiny objects into their mouths loaded with other weird colorful soft things that made my mouth water just by smelling them, mommy finally put one of those shiny things in my mouth loaded with some very soft, runny white stuff.

Yuck, that didn't taste the way the other stuff smelt.  What am I supposed to do with this?  I know I will try to suck it using my tongue.  Ugh, why did it just all come out of my mouth and down my chin?

Please no more.  I don't think I like this new stuff.  I will just stick to Mommy's milk.  It's a lot easier to eat and tastes very good.  Doesn't have a weird tecture.

What a mess.  How can they stand to eat like this?

Mommy's note: I started Kimberly on solids on Easter.  She had rice cereal and didn't like it.  I mixed it with breast milk the next time (it was still frozen the first time so had to use water the first time) and she liked it better.  By Tuesday she was eating about as much as she pushed out with her tongue.  Mixed it with bananas yesterday and she really liked that.

Happy Easter

Once again mommy couldn't sleep any longer and bounded out of bed at 6 a.m.  Okay, it was more like dragging myself out of bed but I didn't want to miss the kids reaction to seeing their baskets.  Within moments of getting my camera and sitting in my chair I heard the first stirrings of life coming from the kid's bedroom.  Sure enough I heard Sheila go into the bathroom and shut the door.  But after the toilet flushed she didn't appear in the living room but I heard her climb the ladder back to her bed.

After fifteen minutes I again hear stirrings and soon Sheila appears in the hall.  She strolls into the room glancing over to her basket on her table and starts to giggle as she gets over to me and says, "Look, the Easter bunny came."

Then finally she got excited.  After only glancing into her basket she had to examine Timmy's and Kimberly's baskets.

Then she ran back to her room calling "Timmy, Timmy, the Easter bunny came."

Kimberly, of course, awoke with all the commotion.

After the commotion of the morning we settled down to watch a session of conference.  Between the sessions of conference Grandma, Papa, and Lydia came over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt.

All the kids got tons of eggs.

I made a fun cake for dessert.

I got the idea from my Simple Delicious magazine.  I was inspired by their circus cake.

It was a fun day.

Cream Cheese or Sour Cream

I decided I just didn't feel like going shopping yesterday so gave Ray the list to get at the commissary.

After he got home I started to put the groceries away.  I look in the bag and see a tub of sour cream.  That wasn't on his list (I get that at Wal-Mart since I can get the bigger one for the same price as the little one at the Commissary.)  "Why did you get sour cream?" I asked and before he can answer I see another one and said, "And why did you get two of them?"

"Four," he answers.  "Your list had four of them on it."

I hit my head with the palm of my hand exclaiming, "Cream cheese!  Four cream cheese!"

He dug out the wadded up list from the bottom of one of the bags,straightens it out, and sure enough it said 4 cream cheeses.  "Doh," he grunts and pretends to eat the list.

I now have enough sour cream for about 2 months.  Thank goodness he bought the little ones.

Goal update

10 things I look forward to:

1. trip to Idaho--will be June-July.  We have booked camp sites in Mammoth cave, KY: Zion National Park, UT; Grand Canyon, AZ; and Mesa Verde National Park, CO.  Still have lots more to plan and book
2. Winter olympics--watched and enjoyed.
3. Ray's raise--finally got it this payday.  His ceremony was Mar 16.  I still need to download pictures and blog about that.
4. "Tower of Midnight"-- unfortunately that is not being released until December but I am now reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians among other books.
5. Kimberly's firsts--can roll over and now is trying to sit up.
6. new van-well, we got a SUV instead. We got a 2009 Kia Borrego EX Limited.
7. beach--meant to go in March but our family got the flu and colds.  Hopefully will start next weekend.
8. Sheila going to kindergarten--this fall.
9. temple--probably not until the summer since Kimberly is so little and the temple is so far away. Will also try to start going quarterly. Plan on going to a few temples on our trip. Some of them Ray and I will have to take turns going.  Want to go to the Nauvoo, Winter Quarters, Twin Falls, and Salt Lake at least.
10. moving-decided not to try this year since the housing market is still in the pits and we need to make a little bit of a profit at least so will just start fixing up our house.  We will be getting new outer door knobs and locks before we leave for our trip.  Also I hope to paint the kids bathroom by then too.
10 Goals for 2010
1. learn to use my serger--will get it out this month. Today I am cutting out patterns.  The first thing I am making this month is matching skirts and dress for the girls and I.
2. finish Old Testament--I am almost done with Nehemiah.
3. catch up on one scrapbook--changed this a little since I will be gone a good month in the summer.  My goal now is to organzie photos and put them in photo albums until I can scrapbook them and then keep current as I get pictures.  If I can keep current I plan on catching up one each year and stay current on other ones until I am all current, and I will start that next year.
4. paint the inside of the house--may paint the kids bathroom before our vacation but I plan on painting their bathroom, the girls room, the dining room and kitchen first.  Then perhaps our room, bathroom, and living room.
5. finish the "Work and the Glory," "Harry Potter," and "Twilight" series again--currently taking a break on those series.  I am reading the second Hunger Games, "Catching Fire," right now.  After finishing that one I will be reading the last Work and the Glory volume.
6. make my own cookbook--still working on it
7. I have lost all the baby weight plus five more pounds.  Would like to lose 5 more before we head out in June.  Then another 5-10 before the end of the year.  Overall I would like to lose 10-15 pounds.
8. make over $200 at the fair--this is coming along slowly but with my sewing I should get more items done.
9. get a fence and new shed-have it in the budget but it may be this fall or next spring now that we had to wait so long for Ray's raise to go through.
10. start writing again--wrote a poem this month.  I don't write poems often and I don't like sharing them usually because they are very personal.