Favorite Words

I know kids are creatures of habit, but if I have to hear these words one more time, I'll lose my bloomin' mind!

Gavin:
I forgot! (Isn't that great!)
Chicken!
Bahookies!

Enoch:
I begot (forgot) and I bemember (remember).
Actually...
Holy Moly!
Whoopsies! (My favorite; I can't wait to see what has happened.)

Kate:
Uppie (I think this started as 'up me' and then blended into uppie. She says it when she wants to be picked up.)
ME DO IT! (Growling; we hear this constantly.)
Enoch! (When she gets hurts and I ask her what happened, she yells, 'Enoch!' - even when Enoch is not home.)

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Enoch has been begging for months to go fly a kite. How appropriate that some days I wish I could tell him to do just that. Anyway, this afternoon was finally kite-flying weather. Rarely is the wind blowing just right; it's either not blowing at all, or way too much.
Greg and Enoch headed out into the cul-de-sac to get the kite up into the air. Enoch was thrilled and memorized by the dragon kite (without a head, who knows where that ended up?!). He would shout and scream every time he got into the air and then shout and scream when it crashed into the ground.
What a simple joy, but life is simplistic joy for Enoch - everything is good.

Yard Day

The past month we have been doing some major remodeling in our backyard. We finally admitted to ourselves that we didn't have the expertise or time to do it ourselves so we hired our neighbor, a professional landscaper. Great move on our part. When the yard is finished I'll post pictures.
In the meantime, we have been finishing up a few projects to compliment the remodel. It was a beautiful day and we spent the entire day in the back.

We spread leftover mulch (or poopy dirt as Enoch calls it) in the front and back yards.
We spent some time at the nursery, bought blackberry and grape plants, got them into the ground and transplanted some raspberry plants.
We (okay me, I'm so proud of myself!) assembled a glider swing.
We (okay, mostly Greg) stained the garden arbor. That night we told Enoch he was a good boy. He pouted (very grumpily), "I'm also a painter boy. You should have let me help paint outside today." He was only slightly bitter about not being able to paint the arbor.
We were exhausted.

Blossoms by Enoch

We gave Enoch the camera to keep him entertained while we were working in the yard. I think the kid has real talent. He took about 30 pictures. These few are my favorites.

Easter Clothes

The kids were finally able to wear their Easter clothes today (Conference was on Easter and we were out of town last week). They all looked so cute and handsome. Kate loved her twirly dress, Enoch thought his matching belt was way cool and Gavin looked so grown up in his deacon suit.
Notice Kate pouting in the background. She wanted another picture to herself and didn't want to share with her brothers!

Dang Sensitive Skin

My Gavin and Kate have such sensitive skin. Enoch not so much, but the other two make up for it. They got the bad skin genes from both sides - my pasty white skin and the Fowler rashy skin. Yippee!
Gavin came home from Arizona with a rash covering his entire body. Really. Little white bumps everywhere. It didn't bother him so we just left it alone.
On Friday morning, Kate woke up with a cold sore on her lip. I was furious. I was ready to do serious bodily damage to the person who gave my baby cold sores. I took her into the doctor to learn about prevention and outbreaks of cold sores. After looking at her for a few seconds, the doctor said she was pretty sure it wasn't a cold sore but Impetigo. I had heard of that, but didn't know what it was. After describing the symptons, I'm convinced that is what Gavin has too. Good grief! The doctor said they probably caught it from the hot tub. After a $45 tube of antibacterial cream, we're in business.
I'm hoping it clears up fast. It doesn't seem to be bothering them at all, but poor Kate has a few big bumps on her face (probably irritated by her binkie). Once we get this cleared up, we'll start worrying about sunburns!

Did you feel it?

It was late (okay 6 pm). I was at work. I was getting ready to go home. I was sitting in front of my computer when I felt the earthquake. I felt like someone was moving my chair back and forth, but the rest of the room moved with it. It seemed to go on for several seconds, then stopped, then start back up for several more seconds. It was very quiet. Almost everybody at the office knew immediately knew what it was. We all went online to learn what we could about it. The first place that reported it was the U of U website. I called Tresa to see if she had felt it. She hadn't. I packed up and went home (glad that the earthquake didn't do more damage and I could drive home).