Swensen Sentral

On Mon April 22nd we said goodbye to a long time member of our family, The Honda Accord. She was such a good car to us. My first memory of her was when Rick picked me up for a fancy date with rose petals leading from my doorstep all the way to the car door. He borrowed it from his dad that night so he could propose. It was the most amazing date ever! After we were married, I remember how excited we were when we traded in the old sky blue Pontiac to purchase this NICE car from Rick's dad. Before kids came along, I remember driving her from Chicago all thru the night to Riverside CA for a summer sales job. After kids, I remember cramming 3 car seats in the back after having our 3rd child and hoping the door would shut. THEN, I remember cramming our entire family of 5 in her and everything we needed to live for a summer, and embarking on the drive from Provo to Boise. With things literally stuffed in every nook and cranny, we about went crazy on that trip. We vowed to return to Pro...

T-R-O-U-B-L-E Found her at it again.  None of my other kids had this problem?  Luckily it wasn't permanent this time. Then I find her walking around the house with several hair elastics on her arm and fingers (small ones I might add, that she stretched to get on).  Her purple hand wasn't liking it so much, but she seemed oblivious.  Luckily I caught her before it fell off.

Chase is like obsessed with his light blue blanket that Nana made him as a baby.  Ok, maybe not obsessed because he CAN sleep without it at night and he doesn't carry it around the house or anything (thank goodness, cuz that would be weird for a 7 year old boy to do).  But he DOES love it a whole lot, and I catch him sniffing it every so often and snuggling it to his face when he's not aware I'm looking.  So the other day he told me this... "Sometimes when I smell my blanket I have tears of joy....and I can't get my nohse off cuz it smells so good." ...I busted up laughing.

So Chase was asking to watch a movie, and I suggested one thing and Rick suggested another. Chase liked my suggestion best but Rick said no so I consented. Chase wasn't happy with that so he said, "But you said yes mom!" To which I replied, "but dad said no", to which HE replied, "Well you're the mom and moms are usually in charge of the house." Looks like the whole feminist movement worked.

So today was an especially hard sacrament meeting.  Soleil wouldn't sit still for more than 10 seconds at  a time.  As soon as she got situated on my lap, she wanted down, and then she wanted up, and then back down again.  She was just very busy and all over the place.  And between that I kept trying to find things for Sawyer to do, and nothing held his attention for very long, so he kept moving around on the bench and I kept reminding him to sit down and talk softly and be reverent.  A little over halfway through sacrament meeting he found some kid scissors in my church bag and asked if he could use them.  Usually I would say no way, but today I thought "whatever it takes to keep you happy and still."  So I told him he could use them on ONE little piece of paper, and he had to sit RIGHT at my feet and stay still.  I figured the quiet it would buy me would be worth the mess I'd have to clean up after sacrament meeting was over.  Then bac...

Pic 1- Sawyer said "Mom, take a picture of me doing this." Pic 2- Soleil decided to try tasting the flour and yeast mixture I was using to make pizza dough, despite my warnings not to. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way. Pic 3- Rick happened upon Soleil having her first experience putting on makeup...all by herself...well lipstick as makeup Pic 4- I don't have this picture but wish I would have taken one of the tiger stripes Soleil drew all over both arms yesterday with a black permanent marker, oh and on the side of her face and her shirt. You can see the remains of the table as evidence.