Mother's Day

Well, it was a great Mother's Day, and I hope that all the Mothers that may read this had a great day. Carl was sweet and got me a nice necklace and bracelet, Byzantine style. Mostly silver, with some copper links in it as well. He found someone that makes them by hand, interesting, huh? Imagine really fancy chain mail, made into a bracelet and necklace with the links all woven together to form a metal cord.

Other than that, it was a pretty lazy day. We went to sacrament meeting at church and that was really nice, the children got to sing a couple of songs, it always makes me cry (well a few tears at least) to see them up there. Since we had stayed up so late the night before and finally put the kids to bed at 11pm, we decided to leave after sacrament and make all the children take mandatory naps. So, it was a quiet afternoon. They were all so tired and church is right during lunch time, and me not being prepared again, didn't pack the lunch of crackers and dried apples during sacrament. It really was a recipe for disaster. I did get the girls both dressed nicely in their easter dresses I made them, with matching hairdo's and bows. I have really been meaning to get a nice picture of them, but hadn't yet. So, I just did it, even though I was a little late for church.

Saturday we went down to Louisville in the afternoon. Carl got to go to an outdoor store and see a Backpacker Magazine presentation about their latest gear. The girls and I went to World Market (my favorite store) and went shopping while Carl and James were at the outdoor store. On my way to World Market after dropping James and Carl off, I noticed a huge billboard next to the road for a gun store. So after I picked Carl up I told him about it and he walked in and said it was a "real gun store". Carl said he hasn't ever been in a gun store with more guns than this one. Now, I like guns okay, but really this was quite a site to see. Carl thinks there were no less than 1,000 handguns on display and the same for long guns. Pretty cool, it shows you the freedom we have in this country. While there, Emma got her first gun; now she is 6 and James owned 3 by the time he was 3. So, Emma's first gun is a small .22 rifle called a Cricket, with a hot pink laminated stock. It is really cute. Afterwards, we went to dinner at Skyline Chili and then went to the Pottery Barn store so that I could decide if I wanted this particular bedding I had seen in the catalog. Carl and the kids were patient with me as I spent 90 minutes in there fussing over what shams, decorative pillows and throws I want for the master bedroom. Since tax season is over, I have been working on all of my projects again. I am getting new carpet in the master, I painted a new color in there, replaced the old brittle blinds, and I am getting new bedding. The walls are taupe, carpet dark reddish brown and the bedding is yellow. You can look it up at Pottery Barn, it is called painterly paisley. It is really pretty. I am also repainting my kitchen cabinets and have bought a new light fixture for it. The kitchen here in Kentucky is truly hideous. Painting the cabinets will help a lot, but I am still undecided on what color to paint them, white, green or something esle maybe.

As of late, we have been resurrecting our old hobbies, well, Carl mostly. He has put off his interests for years in the pursuit of a degree, then work, then moving to NC, and then a job that made him travel 67% of the time. So, he got a membership to the range here in KY for Christmas and has tried to go every week with James. James is apparently becoming a pretty good shot, even with a .45 handgun. Pretty good for little James. The Westergard arsenal has had 3 new members added within the last 6 months as well: Sig Mosquito; a shotgun; pink cricket.

Carl has also started doing more hiking again. The trip planned this fall with Poppa going down the river in Jackson Hole on a Canoe, has really got this all going. So, James and Carl are going to spend some extra time, Jesse is going to come up from Denver, and they are going to go backpacking for a week. Carl has been really enjoying getting ready for the trip, planning, buying maps, laminating them, buying a compass for James, a new cooking stove, freeze dried food and a bunch of other stuff that I really don't know what it is. He really is like a kid at Christmas time, that is how excited he is about this trip.

James had his 3rd baseball game last Monday, and hit the ball, got on base, then even made it around to home. The coach was really proud of the entire team, he said he had never coached such a great team, in 7 years, as he coached last week. Everyone was working together really well and playing well. James is enjoying baseball, but it is interesting to see him line up with all the other players, he is easily one of the smallest ones.

Well, on Friday we leave for Germany for a 2 week vacation. This will be the trip of a lifetime, 3 kids and 3 countries in 2 weeks. More to come.

I stubbed my buttcheek!

One of Emma's all time best expressions came from her on a beautiful Easter Sunday...

I stubbed my buttcheek

this was was uttered after she bumped her bum into the corner of a table. Other than that, we had a very relaxing Easter. We stayed home all day, and I actually finished both of the girls easter dresses! They are beautiful, pale pink with white polka dots in taffeta, ankle length. We went tonight to the fabric store and bought some little daisy trim to put around the waist. It was so fun to sew them for the girls. Next sunday I will doll them all up for church, I am really excited.

Temple Sealing

I finally got the temple pictures/video in a format to put on here. Enjoy

Temple Trip

I finally got the video to post of our trip to the Columbia SC temple when we had Anna sealed to us after the adoption was final. Enjoy!!!

We're going to GERMANY!

To use my friend Janell's expression, "We are choosing to not participate in the recession"

So, there is a website that is called travelzoo and it has some amazing travel deals. It is where we heard about going to Paris when we went a few years ago. I found flights to Greece for only $471 per person round trip, after taxes out of Columbus OH, which is only 2 hours from us. I was really excited about the Greece initially and trying to convince Carl, then I got stressed about it being the right decision and Carl started warming up to the idea. So, I was kinda leaving it to him for the final decision. So after discussing it for hours, Carl decided to go to Greece with all the kids, and so he said "do it", so I did. At first we were thinking of only me, Carl and James would go to Greece, but we weren't sure about that, then we decided we would all go, and stay together, although the girls most likely won't remember it at all, and are going to get whiny and complain that her feet hurt (guess which one). Then as we were on the phone with our Greek Uncle and the tickets were changing. We had to get earlier dates in May, we had to fly out of Columbus (2 hours away) at 6 am not noon and had a 7.5 hour layover in Kennedy not a 2 hour layover. But we were doing it, picked airplane seats, put in credit card and then just before I clicked "purchase and confirm" he said wait, lets go to Germany..... Which I had started to look at earlier in the day. So, we started looking at that and the tickets were less than Greece and we could fly out of Cincinnati! Cincinnati airport is 20 minutes from our house. So, for all 5 tickets we got it for $2200 approximately. Amazing! huh? I am so excited, I can hardly stand it, I started jumping up and down after it was done. OH, a final part of the purchase drama, when I was clicking on the Germany "purchase" button after I had picked seats and put in my cc info, it was supposed to go to a confirmation page and then it said "sorry there was an error on the website"! I was freaking out. It let me go back to the previous page and I tried it again, still an error. But then on the previous page, I noticed that you could call and purchase on the phone, so I did that and it gave me a confirmation number. So, there you go! That is the beginning of our Germany trip adventure.

To all of you blog stalkers out there, yes I am finally going to publish a new post...

The weather in Kentucky has been really nice this past week, we had a couple of cold days but it did hit 70 degrees as well. It was so nice outside, we just sat in the driveway and ate. Carl did an amazing job smoking the pork tenderloin dor dinner tonight, it was seriously the best meat I have ever eaten. We also did dutch oven potatoes that were killer too! We haven't done dutch oven for quite some time, so it was really fun.

Well, tax season is nearly done, and I think the pneumonia that has gone through the house is nearly gone as well. Yes, you hear it pneumonia, during tax season. So, I have gotten behind, but in the last week or so am finally catching up. One thing with being sick during tax season, I have had a lot more time to knit while sitting in line at the pharmacy or at the doctors office waiting. So, I actually bought yarn and a pattern in February when I was there for tax season and I just finished the sweater today. It turned out really nice. James looks quite handsome in it. Here is James playing Harry Pottery in his new sweater.

Carl will be doing his first of three mandatory furlow weeks on April 6, for the week that the kids have spring break. They may end up heading off to Virginia to visit the cousins, we'll see. Carl driving for 7 hours across the country with three kids and no wife to meter it all out? Hmm...

We have been enjoying sushi obsession lately, not the sashimi, but the rolls. We haven't been brave enought to try the sashimi, but we'll see for the future. It is fun to try all the different restaurants around that serve it and find the best ones, and all of the different vareities. We seem to favor the ones that have more vegetables than just fish and rice. I went to a Thai restaurant with a friend last week for lunch and had really great sushi. When I was in Utah for tax season, I think I had sushi four times...the hanabi roll at Windy's Suykiaki in Ogden is really good. So, we have gotten some sushi to bring home and have even let the kids try it. There has been some that they have liked and some not. Even Emma our pickiest eater, has liked some of it. She tried a shrimp roll that she enjoyed. I told her we neede to have a girls lunch out for sushi soon, to curb her momma's cravings.

James and Carl are planning a big backpacking trip in August in the Teton's. Carl is just about jumping out of his skin. He is loving every planning moment. We got James a really nice mountainsmith pack for the trip, and Carl is starting to break him into it. They plan on trying to go out every weekend to do a little hiking so that James is prepared in August. Fritz has really enjoyed going out and hiking as well. Alex's old pack fits him really nice, Fritz is a little smaller than Alex, but it works great. We haven't put the hiking booties on yet, we seriously should have the video camera for that one. It is so funny to see a dog wearing booties for the first time, but it really saves their paws.

We haven't heard anything on the adoption yet, we are still saying our prayers that another child will bless our family.

Trebuchet is such a cool name for a font, don't ya think? Anyway, tax season is in full swing for our household. It is something that affects everyone here, because the kids kinda lose their mom for 10 weeks. However, with mandatory furlows and layoffs at Carl's work, it is essential that tax season be a success for the family. We have really been battling walking pneumonia here as well. It started with Anna end of January, then James when I was in Utah, then Emma, now Mom. Carl has "kinda runny nose". So, it appears that he has evaded it once again. If you look at our expenses over the last month or so, it is mostly copays and trips to Walgreens. We are all tired of being sick. I think that we are mostly on the mend now, and I hope to catch up on tax returns, because I am seriously behind.