Sabrina

 Last, but certainly not least:

 Can you believe how deceptively long/thick her hair looks this way?!

This series makes me laugh.  Oh the many expressions of Sabrina!

Lizzie

 Good heavens, those EYES!

 I think Lizzie may be in the running for a Rapunzel remake.  Look at those long golden locks!

Kate

 Miss Kate

 (Proof that even all dressed up, Kate will be Kate.  I love it.)

 You can see now why I had to do two photo shoots.  I needed to see that my girls are indeed little girls still, in braids and torn jeans.  

Sisters

I have taken new photos of my three girls recently.  These playful pictures I took a couple of days ago, and there are some fancy ones I took a couple of weeks ago.  I know I'm not fancy schmancy photographer, but I do love taking pictures of my girls!  Besides playing with the actual photo-taking stuff I've been messing with improving my editing skills.  These are my favorite picture of Sisters.  

 (The blue on their lips is painted on from Robin's Eggs Easter candy)

Marching

It has been almost an entire month since my last post.  Oops.  Life has been busy and sometimes overwhelming, but overall life continues to be happy.

Here is a photo-heavy review of the rest of the month of March, including the explanation of why I was spooling up the Pre-Cambrian period ;)

These are the only two pictures I have of this, but I got to teach a class to all of the 4th grade about paleantology.  I was able to bring in a whole bunch of wonderful casts and even some real dinosaur bones for the kids to see, touch, and learn about.  It was a lot of fun to teach a class again.  The teacher has already asked if I would do it again next year.  I made a timeline of yarn showing each period which I then discussed with the kids.  The pre-cambrian periods is by far the longest.  One inch of yarn equals 1 million years.  It was a great way to see how very long things took to happen.  (It also shows specific creative periods in which water and land divide, plants appear, animals differentiate, etc., though of course I didn't point any of that out in public school ;))

Kate, Lizzie, and Sabrina loved going to school on pajama day.  Before school was "Dads and Donuts".  Michael wasnt' able to go this year, so the girls had to make do with Mom instead.

Grandma's birthday was the 5th of March.  We had a party at the Jager home where we sampled various juices and gum.  My brother has been on a food-free diet (supplemented with iv TPN) but at that point was allowed a glass of juice each day and gum as desired.  My sister-in-law created a super cute tree covered with shamrocks that each person had written on.  A sign said "We're so LUCKY to have you..." (or something to that effect) and each shamrock said some reason we feel lucky to have her as our Mom/MIL/Grandma.  Brek was fascinated by the candle.

A couple of weeks later we pulled off a surprise party for Grandma.  It took all my creativity to keep Mom from driving past her home on our way home from orchestra to Suzette's house for a "ukulele party", but we managed to keep her away.  Several of us played ukulele songs and even performed Liza Jane via Facetime to my sister's family (which includes a daughter named Eliza Jane).  Then the group did a mini-marathon to grandma's house just a few blocks away.  I made all sorts of excuses to drive to her house instead and transported the goodies for lunch.

 Meanwhile, at Grandma's house, a crew of family members (shame they were all busy with various excuses and couldn't join the party ;)) was working on fixing the shed.  It got a new roof and a new floor.  No more climbing over a huge pit just inside the doorway!

We seemed to pull it off and surprise Grandma -- complete with a fancy lunch.  Suzette made a beautiful sandwich cake (which was YUMMY) and others brought simple sandwiches for those with a simple palate, vegis and dip, and faux-Hostess goodies for dessert.  

 I love watching Sabrina do gymnastics to pull herself into Grandma's walnut tree!

The huge tarp which has served as the "wrapping" of the shed for the last couple of years to try fending off the wet was spread out and folded.  The kids did a good job of folding it, complete with rolling on it to flatten it out each time they folded it over again.  Lizzie and Kate did have a hard time figuring out how to roll over one another when the square got so small.

Back at the homestead: I've finished two of the three curtain pairs for the living room windows.  I absolutely love how they have worked out!  I just need to find another flat sheet at WalMart (It has taken 6 months to gather the 5 I've collected so far!) to finish.  Clearly they have inventory issues.

I have also made progress in the master bath.  I finished off the false chandelier, fitting it with tea lights where the once were standard "flame" bulbs.  I also applied metallic gold stencils around the top of the room to replace the dusty grape vines that were hanging there when we moved in.  I still need to get the final curtains for the windows, but the room is finally becoming a reflection of us.

 Pictured here are two reasons I'm not skinny ;)  Homemade "Twinkies" with french vanilla cream filling.  And the elusive raspberry and mint m&ms.  All delicious!  I also made Hostess style cupcakes, complete with cream filling, chocolate ganache, and the signature swirlies on the top.

In the month of March our van was going to require a fair chunk of money -- a couple of repairs followed by inspections and registration.  Ugh.  So we went to just check out the options on trading our van in for something a little newer.  And we left with a new van.  Actually *new*.  It looks very much like the older one, but is really lovely.  We really like having a full warranty and all the great safety and convenience features!

 Sabrina got to try her hand at the wheel (long story short: the car isn't turned on and she was given the full "never touch anything in a car" lecture and I was sitting right next to her.  She just struck these poses and they cracked me up).  I like the one at the top left where it looks like she's reaching the speed of light :P

As per standard operating procedure, I ended up with some funky health thing going on.  Just to keep busy, ya know.  I got a double ear infection which was quite miserable.  I held it off with various home remedies, but it finally surpassed what I could manage that way and I headed to the doctor.  I was prescribed amoxicillin (which I've taken dozens of times).  After the first two doses I was covered with a nasty batch of hives.  I had hives from my scalp all the way to the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet.  Apparently I'm now allergic to amoxicillin!  Rats.  I was switched to a different antibiotic and the ear infection cleared.  The hives took their sweet time calming down.  In fact, it's been a month or so, and I still have them!  I have since then been through a 7 day course of steroids, 2 weeks of hefty antihistamines, as well as my morning dose of antihistamines for allergies and two benadryl every night.  And still if I get a tiny scratch or irritation it turns into huge red welts that last anywhere from 20 minutes to most of a day.  And once the itchiness starts it just doesn't stop.  Ugh.

As I've been working hard to get on top of my fibromyalgia pain, which was taking over all our lives, and the IC pain which was also getting out of control.  Because of all these things straining my body at once I have been on far more pills than I wanted.  That handful of pills shown below?  That was one days batch.  I am off a few of those now, but it varies day to day.  The only thing that won't go away is a strange throat thing.  It is striped with red and yellow, covered with blisters, and not passing food easily.  It's not super painful, but it is strange.  I did a triple round of yeast killing meds as I'd also had thrush, but I don't think it's really any better.  Hopefully it will get tired of being strange.  (I'll spare you the pictures of my throat.  You're welcome.)

Little Sabrina also spent some time with a nasty bug.  She was tired, cranky, then had a crazy fever.  I took these pictures in the middle of the night.  She woke up whimpering and when I touched her face it was burning up.  She sat and played games on Daddy's iPad with him while sitting in front of a fan.  We had dosed her with ibuprofen and were hoping that it would bring her temperature down from the 104* it was at.  In half an hour or so (yes, she looks FAR too chipper for being up for 30 minutes in the middle of the night, scorching hot!) her temperature was a bit lower so we went back to bed.  It took several days, but she finally got better.  As per SOP for Sabrina, she ended up with a nasty asthmatic cough at the end, but her inhaler calmed that down soon enough.

 My younger brother Dan came to town for a few days.  He and his family have been in South Carolina while he attended grad school there.  We're delighted that he is graduating... pretty much any day now!  AND to make it even better, he has a job already, and it is here in Utah!  I cannot wait to see my niece again and meet their little boy too!  While he was here we got to have him over along with another brother and his family.  We had a fire in our fire bowl out back and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.  I love being part of such a large family -- such a variety of people and ideas and specialties!

(Sierra was very confused by being left inside while we sat just outside but where she could still see us!)

These are a few random photos of and by Sabrina.  Ginger was very patient to let Sabrina bundle her up in towels!

Finally (finally!) the last day of the month was the first day of General Conference.  Kate had another turn of going with her aunts and one of her cousins to the Saturday Morning session.  She had a wonderful time and was so grateful for a chance to sit so close to the prophet and apostles and other leaders of this worldwide church!  They were sitting on the second row.  Amazing, right?  Lizzie cannot wait for her turn in October, since she will be old enough (8) by then.

I hope to catch up the first two weeks of April very soon.  I love to put together these photos and remember the many blessings and joys in our lives.  Sometimes it is easy to see the pain and suffering and loss in life and miss the joy of a man made of popcorn, a cookie, and candy. 

Dang Leprechaun

When Kate was probably 4 years old I decided that I really ought to do something fun to celebrate St. Patrick's day.  Mostly it was because by mid-March we're desperate for something different to do to break up the monotony, especially if the weather has stayed gloomy.  So the night before St. Patty's day I took a skein of variegated rainbow colored yarn and strung it through our small apartment.  The yarn path began in Kate's room and at the end of it was a little treat.  I felt like such a good mommy.

Twelve months later it was St. Patty's Day again and Kate asked me when the leprechaun was going to come.  Dang.  I'd totally forgotten that we'd been "visited" the previous year!  I thought a little green food coloring in our pancakes was adequate, but I was clearly wrong.  So now every year we get some sort of visit from The Leprechaun.

One year he did a clever scavenger hunt with rhyming clues, one time he left a little pot of goodies wrapped with gold cellophane... that sort of thing.  This year, thanks to Pinterest, I have a board dedicated to St. Patrick's Day.  It includes clever food ideas (some are even healthy!), decorations, etc.  Still, last night one of the girls mentioned "I can't wait for the leprechaun to come tomorrow!" and I had that sinking feeling of  'oh shoot, I forgot!'.  So I grabbed a standard sized bag of skittles and a small bag of mini marshmallows.  Last night after the girls were asleep (okay, I admit -- around midnight when I was about to go to bed, because I'd forgotten AGAIN) I got out 5 cute pint jars.  I filled each about half full of mini marshmallows.  Then I let my CDO loose and sorted the whole bag of skittles.  Each jar got an equal number of purple skittles sprinkled on the marshmallows.  Another handful of marshmallows followed, then an even portion of green skittles, and so on with yellow, orange, and finally red skittles.  I put the lids on the bottles and put the jars on (or next to) each person's bed.

This morning the girls were excited to find their own "bottled rainbow".  They then set to eating a pint of artificially colored and flavored sugar.  Thank goodness marshmallows are mostly air!  I confess to feeling a little smug about running out the door for the rest of the morning to go to orchestra and leaving the sugar laden girls to Daddy's care.

Scholastic Pursuits

 Recently the 4th grade classes at the elementary school put on their program.  They were all supposed to dress as a pioneer, native american, or trapper (or a modern 4th grader ;)).  It was a fun short program where each student had a speaking part (many of them in pairs) and they sang several songs.

Kate borrowed some costume pieces from Grandma Jensen, including an apron which Grandma's two grandma's made together for her not long before her wedding.  (Did I remember that right, Mom?).  So it was made by Kate's Great-Great-Grandmothers then.  Wow!

One handy thing about Kate being so short is that she usually is placed at the front and/or side of a group so it's easy to find her.

 

 After taking pictures / video I worked on untangling the pre-cambrian period and wrapping it around a soda bottle.  (I'll explain later).