Life in the busy, crazy lane

Life has been one whirlwind after another lately. It seems like we are constantly running from one commitment to another; all of them are good, and all of them need to get done and all of them seem to happen at the same time. Many nights Marc and I go to bed and think "One down, how many more to go?" Through it all though we have tried to have some fun, the camera may have been forgotten the majority of the time but there are still some things worth writing about.

• First of all we made the crib into a toddler bed for Benjamin so he can get used to sleeping in a bed with more freedom before he put in a twin bed at the end of April. Yep I said twin bed. We are getting the kids bunk beds at the end of April and they will once again be sharing a room. We figured that would give us a few months of transition time before the baby comes. So far Benjamin has done quite well. At first he would wait for me to get him out of bed after a nap or bedtime, but now he can't wait to get out of bed. Most mornings when I come up from my shower he is up and into something. One morning I found him standing on the side of the tub with my toothbrush in hand and the water at the sink running full blast. Just this morning he had opened our closet door, got out Marc's basketball shoes and was stomping around the room in them. Silly boy!

• Also I think Benjamin is grasping the fact that I have a baby in my belly. We have been reading and talking to the kids a lot about babies. Rachel sure knows what's going on and according to her she has a baby in her tummy too and I'm going to have a dump trunk (we'll see how that one turns out.) When I ask Benjamin where the baby is he will point to my belly and say "baby." And occasionally he will give my belly a gentle pat and hug, it's pretty cute. We'll see in a few months if he really does know what's going on.

• Both kids, I think, have FINALLY adjusted to the time change. (knock on wood) For the first week they would get up at 9 in the morning and not take naps. It made for a very, very long week. Now Benjamin is waking up at 7, Rachel at about 7:30-8 and they both take naps. Hallelujah!!!

• In between everything else I've still kept up on my baking. I've gotten back into making our bread. During the first trimester I was so sick I didn't do much of anything. It feels so good to have homemade goodies again, especially homemade bread, yum! Today I made my breakfast granola bars, they are packed with veggies and fruit, there are no eggs or dairy and the kids LOVE them. I know I'm sneaky.

• Rachel and Benjamin are continuing to grow way to fast. Rachel loves to 'read' to Benjamin which is a big help especially when I'm getting ready in the morning. It's been a lot of fun to watch them play more and more together. He loves to copy her and she is teaching him more and more about imaginative play. Last Friday we had a ward dinner and dance with a live band. Rachel insisted that she wear her Cinderella dress. So she did. She wore her white and silver sparkly dress that gets glitter ALL OVER the place to the dinner and to (what she calls) the ball. She had a blast dancing and pretending to dance with the Prince (who was actually her friend Shayla). At the stroke of 9 though the ball was over and the spell was broken.

• In between running around we have had to deal with some sicknesses. All of us but Marc got a nasty cold, Benjamin and Rachel ended up getting ear infections from it, but after some medicine they quickly went away. There were no repeat ear infections this time, which I am very grateful for. Rachel came down with some kind of bug yesterday and spent the majority of the day vomiting and having diarrhea. That wasn't much fun for her, me or Benjamin.

• Last Wednesday Rachel had another appt. with the allergist. She was running late so we didn't get to see her until 45 min after our scheduled appt. time (which was 3:30 pm), we spoke with her for about 5 min then she sent us to the hospital to get some blood work done. When we got to the hospital people were confused because of some construction going on, then they locked themselves out of the lab for 1 1/2 hours!! Meanwhile I had both kids, no snacks or toys, I wasn't expecting it to take THAT long. They were hungry, bored and tired just like me and they were running all around the waiting room, it was crazy! After a while the receptionist gave them some paper and pens which kept them occupied until 6 pm when they finally found a key and took us back. Now, at all of the other blood draws Rachel did relatively well, maybe a few tears but that was it. Not this time. This time she was screaming bloody murder, kicking and thrashing like crazy on my lap. It took me and another nurse to hold her down long enough for them to poke her and miss the vein in her right arm, so they had to try her left arm. Meanwhile Benjamin was on the floor next to me emptying the contents of my purse all over the place. After the hospital we had to stop at the grocery store where I was in and out in 15 min, gold record medal if I do say so myself. That was not my favorite day, but it's over and now we are just waiting on the results of her blood tests. If the egg allergy levels come back negative we shouldn't have to see the allergist again and we can introduce eggs to her diet. Which is what we are hoping for, though I think the hardest part will be convincing her that she can eat them.

• We've also expanded our garden area. There was a space behind our garage that we were doing nothing with. It gets a lot of sun, so instead of the grass dying back there we thought we would use it as more garden space. We had our friends, the Stevens, come over to help Marc do the hard work. While the guys were busy building this, we (the girls) watched the kids play on the swing set and fed everyone lunch. It was a beautiful day, perfect for being outside all day. Now all we have to do is till up the garden areas, aerate and fertilize our yard then everything will be ready for Summer.