This evening

John and Kristine very graciously lent us one of their digital cameras to use until we get a new one. This means I can once again take tons of pictures... even "unimportant" pictures that turn out badly and get deleted before they even hit the computer. Ah, the freedom.

So, here are some "unimportant" pictures of a very ordinary evening at our house.

I thought if I made Elisa's dinner into a face she might eat more of it. But she took three bites and then kept insisting on "fruit snacks" (which are a recent addition at our house and since they are pretty much just sugar, Elisa LOVES them.) So we bribed her to take 10 more bites so that she could get dessert. Her choices for dessert were ice cream, vanilla wafers, or fruit snacks. And yes, she chose fruit snacks.

After dinner Elisa started playing with her stickers, and before we knew it she had stuck one on Jonathan's head. He went along with it at first...

...but eventually he didn't think it was too funny.

We went on a short walk after dinner. Elisa didn't want me to take any pictures of her. But she was so cute that I snuck one anyway.

Here's Jonathan showing off his new tongue smile. He sure loves his dad. I don't know who he likes more, Greg or Elisa, but I feel like I come in third on the list... which is funny considering that I'm the food supply.

Elisa kept hopping down the stairs saying, "boing!" She is such a big girl now.

So that was our ordinary (and yet extraordinary) evening. Each day I feel so thankful for my beautiful family. I love the ages of our kids. And I love each new age and stage that comes. I love seeing them interact with each other and with Greg. I think of all the older people who tell me, "I miss the days when my kids were little; those days go by so fast. Cherish them." And I can already feel these days slipping through my fingers.

This is not to say that life is perfect (or even close to it). We still have moments during the day full of whining, crying, and fits. And some days it seems that bad moods are the norm and the lovely moments are the exception. But it's all worth it when I see two little faces smiling up at me... and I turn to meet Greg's eyes, and we shake our heads in wonder and say, "so cute."

Diamond Digging!

So it's Spring Break here. My brother and sister-in-law came down to visit us and we all took a trip down to Murfreesboro Arkansas for a little diamond digging!

Arkansas is home to the only diamond-producing site that is open to the public, Crater of Diamonds State Park. My brother learned this as a little kid, and has always wanted to visit. So, now that we live in Arkansas, this was his opportunity.

This is what it looks like... a field of dirt. It had rained quite heavily the day before we arrived, and so the ground was sticky mud. I had worn slip on shoes which threatened to suck off of my feet with each step. Greg was a little more prepared with water-proof boots. And Elisa chose to wear her pretty pink shoes. The clay-mud built up on our shoes with each step resulting in hilariously heavy feet.

John and Kristine were the serious diamond hunters... wet sifting through the dirt. Greg and Elisa helped them a little, while I walked around with Jonathan and tried to make sure my shoes stayed on my feet. In the end we didn't find any diamonds, but we had a memorable time at an Arkansas landmark. And we made fun memories with John and Kristine. Thanks guys, for coming all this way to be with us!

Diaper Deal

So, right now I have two kids in diapers. Elisa was SUPER into potty training right around the time that she turned two. For a couple weeks she used the potty, wore big girl underwear, and was very self-motivated. She could totally do it, and I was ecstatic. But then for some reason she decided that she'd rather just wear diapers. I have decided not to push her just yet, but let her lead the way for now. So once again, I have two in diapers.

Now as most of you know I have done both cloth and disposable diapers (See this post and this post to read more on this). Right now Jonathan wears both cloth and disposables, and Elisa is exclusively in disposables. (She needed new diaper covers and we decided not to replace them since she was "so close" to potty training).

Anyway, I guess I bring all this up to say that diapers are expensive. And diapering two children (even one that often wears cloth) is really expensive. So I wanted to tell anyone who is in the same boat as me about a great deal at Diapers.com.

If you are a new customer they will give you $10 off your first order (of $49 or more) when you use the referral code CARX1546 (this also gives me a $5 credit). Then print off this form and follow the instructions on the bottom to get a $14.97 rebate from Parenting Early Years magazine. I did this about a month ago and received my rebate check last week, so it really works! I ended up paying about 11 cents per diaper... which is such a great deal! Cheaper even than buying the big case of store brand diapers at Sam's Club (which are about 17 cents per diaper). So give them a try if you haven't yet!

Jonathan at 5 months and a picnic in the park

Jonathan is officially 5 months old today.

Isn't he just the cutest thing ever?

The weather has been a little warmer the last couple days. So yesterday we went to the park for a picnic. Elisa showed what a big girl she has become by climbing up the big ladder all by herself, and then sliding down the huge curvy slide all by herself.

Notice the outfit; she picked it out all by herself too.

Moving

It's been almost 4 years since we packed up and left our beloved Portland to live in a place I had never even visited. Yep, almost 4 years since we moved to Arkansas to take a job at John Brown University. My mind reels when I try to think of a way to sum up what it's been like to move across the country and live here. And while there are so many things that I could say about our time here (and probably will say in future posts), right now all I want to say is that our time here is drawing to an end. Greg has told his boss that he is not planning on coming back next year, and they are in the process of interviewing other people to take over his position. We don't know where we will end up come this summer. But the one thing we do know is that it is time for us to live closer to our family. We want our kids to grow up closer to their Grandparents (and Aunt and Uncle). We want to see our family more than twice a year. Greg is looking for a job (preferably in Student Development) somewhere in the Northwest. We would love to live in Portland again, but we know that we may end up somewhere else. There are a lot of things up in the air for us. Please pray for us. Pray for wisdom, and pray for a job! Thanks.

(Here's a link to Greg's take on this same subject)

Valentine craftiness

At the library we use this hard plastic stuff that's sticky on one side to cover paperback books. A few weeks ago one of the other girls who I work with was covering books and she had a bunch of little pieces of this plastic left over. We were brainstorming about different uses for it and I ended up bringing home a bunch of the scraps thinking I was going to use them to make Valentine bookmarks. After some thought I ended up using it to make these fridge magnets...

Aren't they so cute? I sent them to our family members as little Valentines gifts. They are just wallet size pictures glued to thin magnetic backing (I happened to have a roll of this left over from a previous project. If you are interested in making something similar and don't want to buy anything, my friend Jeana used old magnets from pizza places etc. to make her alphabet magnets.) Then I used the aforementioned plastic from the library to cover them.