News of late.

>I *LOVE* Ethne's nose-scrunch smile!!!!! IT is soooooo adorable!!! (once again, however, they turned out blurry. RUFF!!!) She is so cute and happy looking!<


So, I've been meaning to do a catch-up post. So I guess here it is. Only I can only remember as far back as Saturday, so that's where I'll start. Brett went sledding with his Scouts and he took Jethro and Hazel with him. I went to practice the organ while they were sledding, but couldn't because of the broadcast of Pres. Hinckley's funeral. Whoops. Anyway, no one had broken any bones while I was gone, so I was happy about that.

Then we went to the library and they were kicking off the start of the Read-Aloud month. So there was a drawing and the prize was a $10 gift certificate to a candy store downtown and I WON!!! Woohoo!!! I was sooooo excited!! Oh yeah, that makes me remember the other thing that I wanted to write about.

Jethro can read!!! The other day I was printing a few worksheet-type pages for Hazel off the internet, and I saw a link that said something like "early reader story" so I clicked on it and printed it off. When Jethro got home I told him to read it and he totally did!!! It consisted of really easy words, of course, like "Zac is a cat. Zac is white." (He learned color words in school.) So then at the library I found some other really easy books (three/four letter words)--they're called Bob books--and he totally read them no problem! It's so exciting.

Anyway, we got home and we had a check in the mail from some property tax rebate. It was so awesome. And our state tax return had been deposited in our account, so we felt rich rich rich!

Sad thing on Sunday...we had finished dinner and Brett went in the front room and fell asleep on the floor. I read the kids a couple stories, and then I told them I was going to go have a rest too. So I went to my room and got in bed, and Hazel came with me and napped with me, but Jethro was sad that everyone was asleep and not playing with him. So he went out and harassed Brett a bit, so of course Brett got after him because who likes to be harassed while sleeping? Anyway, by the time I got up from my short nap, Jethro and Brett were playing Chess (Jethro loves bringing home these games from the school library but it's soooo frustrating because he can't play them and he gets upset! anyway.) and were happy. I went out into the kitchen, though, and saw a piece of paper on the fridge that said, "THiS iS THe BADiST DA UV Mi LiF." It was sooo sad!!! I was telling my brother-in-law about this, and he said, "Yeah, the poor guy doesn't have any parents that'll take care of him." Ouch, Blake. Ouch. So maybe having kids learn to write has its downsides.

Anyway, today was crummy cause I felt so sick! It was awful. I woke up feeling so hot, like I had a fever, and my muscles EVERYWHERE ached, even my jaw, and especially my lower back. I had a terrible stuffed head and just felt yucky. Luckily, my generous friend Katrina came over to share some DELICIOUS cookies with me, and so I actually did get dressed (otherwise I don't know if I would have) and even went to the store cause we were out of milk. I HOPE I feel better tomorrow. The worst was right as I was trying to get dinner ready and Ethne was unhappy and screaming and I was frustrated and I was talking to my sister Kami on the phone and I was like, "I'm just so glad that I know Brett will be home in a few minutes---I can't imagine if he were a pilot like Leo and wasn't coming home. I think I would just go hide in my bed." And Kami was like, "yeah, I don't get to see Leo for 10 days!" I don't know how she does it.

Anyway, enough complaining, Brett came home and finished dinner for us, did the dishes, and bathed the kids and put them to bed. YAHOO for my wonderful husband!

Oh, and here's what Ethne looked like after getting into my make-up. Ruff!