1 month pic

Yes, my baby is a month! I still can't believe it's been a month since he was born. Time really does fly ... especially when you're trying to enjoy every minute of their newness. :)

Here's his 1-month pic with the Backyardigans Austin:

In all fairness ...

... I should let you know that Shayla is probably just getting "pay back" for what was done to her by Zachary:


Appears she loved it so much she must think Austin loves it, too. And so far he really doesn't mind. :)

A birthday party and prom ...

So we had an eventful week, which will probably be just the beginning since it seems somehow May is always jam-packed full! I know this week we have the pinewood derby and two Palmer family "gigs" this weekend, so there will be lots more pictures coming.

On Friday we had Zachary's birthday party. Of course it had to have a Star Wars theme. :) Good news is that we did it VERY cheap. I love being economical and put together the party for probably $10 -- including the cake. :) I bought clearance Easter candy for the kids' party bags (who will know Shrek suckers were from Easter anyway?). And we made light sabers for the guests for about 50 cents each:



I made the birthday cake to be two light sabers -- green and blue, which are the boys' favorite colors. (Besides, I don't have food coloring that will make red instead of pink, and red is the "evil" light saber anyway. :) I think it turned out pretty well:


Of course, Zachary insisted it wasn't complete without a Jedi. Fortunately we had figurines we had forgotten to give them for Christmas (which were actually left-overs from the Jedi pack I bought for Tyler's cake in August :). So, I pulled out Mace Windu and had him fight Chancellor Palpatine. Phew!


Then Saturday was prom day. Becca and I (and Shayla) spent the morning finding her some jewelry and doing a little shopping for me. I've found a new favorite store: Kohl's. I got several shirts and two pairs of shorts all for $53! I added up the tags, and the "original" prices were supposed to be more than $200. WOW! Anyway, that made me happy. But back to prom ...

My niece graciously agreed to do Becca's hair. Can't you see how much fun that was:


Actually, Becca loved every second. She looked beautiful in spite of her nerves. I guess I was surprised at how nervous she was since she is so outgoing and seems to have no boy phobias. Anyway, she got put together and looked great:


Then her date came to pick her up, and I snapped only one pic of her pinning on the boutineer:


Not bad, eh? And here she is getting her corsage:


And then here is a pic of her with her date, Tyler. (BTW, her bff Georgina's date was also named Tyler. So funny.)


After she left I ran an errand and had a limo pass me on the freeway. I saw it and thought, "I'm glad Becca's date didn't rent a limo!" Then I started to think of a few reasons it's good to NOT have your daughter's date show up in a limo:

• He's not trying TOO hard to impress her when he shows up in the family minivan -- even if it is a Honda.
• He's not throwing away money. Let's face it -- Becca was thrilled to go to prom no matter what her date drove.
• He has to keep his attention on the road and not fully on my daughter.
• He has to keep his hands on the steering wheel. Enough said! ;)
  

Becca had a blast and loved every minute. I still can't believe we're at this stage. Sigh ...

Busy doin' nothing ...

I feel like I haven't done much of anything lately, but somehow I have felt like I don't have time to do anything. I guess that's always how it feels when you have a baby who needs to eat every two or three hours ...

Yesterday was Zachary's birthday. He was so excited. I still can't believe it was seven years ago that he surprised us with his arrival (since ultrasound said girl). He is a cutie who loves to give hugs. I didn't take any pictures of him opening presents, but here he is with is birthday crown from school:


I may have mentioned that for Easter I let Becca pick out fabric to sew her own skirt. She loves to do this. We got to JoAnn's and she found many fabrics she liked, so I let her pick out two. Needless to say, she sewed a very cute pleated skirt with the second one (my favorite fabric of the two we bought), and she had enough left-over to sew a matching skirt for Shayla. She did a great job considering she didn't have a pattern for Shayla's. We ran into a few glitches with it when the original didn't fit just right, but with some last-minute fixes they got to wear matching outfits to church on Sunday:


Monday night we had a fun Family Home Evening. I had forgotten to remind Tyler he was supposed to be in charge of the lesson, so I only gave him an hour's notice. I wasn't sure what to expect with so little time for him to prepare. Needless to say, I was impressed. He drew this picture of Goliath:


He told us the story about David being brave and coming up against Goliath and using stones to kill him. Then he said we all have Goliaths, so we were going to use some of his piggies to practice killing Goliath like David did. We then took turns throwing stuffed pigs at Goliath:


Man, that Goliath had no idea that his unrighteousness would mean one day people would hurl pigs at his picture ... keep that in mind when making choices, huh?

This weekend Becca is going on her first date! I posted too soon about her not dating yet -- she got asked to prom the next day. What boy asks a girl to prom with less than two weeks to buy a dress?!? Good news is that we found one on KSL.com (a local Craig's List-type site) and it fits perfectly and is totally modest (not to mention cheap). Phew! We're going to add some ribbon to the dress to make it a little nicer (hope I don't mess up :) and I've got to iron the thing. So much preparation for prom ... and I'm not even the one going. Maybe I'll have to get a DQ Blizzard once we get her out the door. Or should I wait until she gets back safely? :) And to think we've got two more years of prom (and other dances) after this one. Sigh ...

Anyway, Austin is four weeks old today. I guess that calls for more pictures. We're sure loving this little cutie:

Cute Austin

As promised, pics from my friend Autumn. Anyone in Utah County should give her a call if you're looking for a photographer: autumnbaldwinphotography.com.

Sweetness

Shayla tends to think her little brother is sweet. However, she thinks he looks a bit sweeter with stickers on his forehead. While I was pregnant I had stickers on my tummy probably at least 50 percent of the time. Now my stomach is sticker-free, but Austin's forehead is not. Needless to say, on any given day I will come into the room to find something like this:


Good thing he doesn't mind -- my little Austin is such a sweetie. He is a very good baby who just needs to figure out nights to be perfect. My favorite part about this little sweetie is that EVERY time he's falling asleep he smiles some huge smiles. I have captured a few to show how happy my little newborn is:




I tend to think he is remembering where he came from -- that perfect existence with our Heavenly Father. Who wouldn't smile when thinking about that? I just hope he stays as happy when he stops remembering that beautiful place.

On to other "sweet" items: Today is Becca's sweet 16! I am not really sure we're ready for her to date and total the car, but I guess we probably aren't going to stop it. Fortunately she's been 16 now for 9 hours and she hasn't been asked out yet. :) And since she doesn't yet have her learner's permit we're not going not have a car accident for a bit. So I guess we can rest easy ... ???

For my birthday Paul got me a DVD that teaches me how to use my camera. I'm very excited about it -- not only will it be easier to digest, but hopefully I'll remember it more than reading a book. For 1.5 years I've been saying, "I need to read the camera's user manual." I guess he realized maybe that'd never happen ... :) So pretty soon I'll be a pro with my camera ... as long as I can remember what I've seen. Aren't I too young to have memory problems?!?

But speaking of pictures, my friend Autumn, who has started a photo business, took some great pics of Austin I'll post this week. I think there's probably not much that I enjoy more than great pictures (especially great pictures on great scrapbook pages :). And I've probably taken at least a thousand of my little guy trying to get the perfect shot. So, for now, here's what I'll leave you with:


SWEET!!!

Another day, another medal ...

So, how many teens do you know who gets two medals in one week? That's exactly what Becca did. Her tall flags finished up competition on Saturday, and her team took third place! So, she came home with another medal only a couple of days after receiving her drama medal.

Way to go, Becca! (And we're glad you're done! ;)

Hoppy Easter

We have the cutest Easter bunny ever!!!

April Fool's!

First of all, happy birthday to my SIL Karen, who we love but don't see nearly enough. I'm so happy that Austin doesn't share your birthday! :)

Second, today is the 10-year anniversary of the day Paul and I started dating. Seriously, has it been only 10 years? Since we started dating? Crazy! I'm guessing on that night 10 years ago Paul had no idea that 10 years later he'd be doing this:
(Especially knowing that this picture doesn't include all of his kids -- there's a baby in the bassinet behind him and a teen on the computer in the other room! HELLO!) In any case, it's been a very fun and eventful 10 years. I've so enjoyed this past week of Paul being home on paternity leave -- he had to go back today :( -- that I look forward to his retirement when we can spend more time together. Only 30 more years, honey ...

On to other fun stuff. You know my goal every year is to trick my kids with a meal on April Fool's. They're getting too big to fool easily, and this year they actually remembered it was April Fool's Day. But I thought maybe I'd get them by serving a joke breakfast instead of dinner. They were on to me pretty quickly, but they still didn't know what they were getting. (Poor Becca wakes up too early, so she didn't get her April Fool's breakfast. She'll have to get it after school.)

So, I put together breakfast -- bacon and a poached egg:


Tyler said, "This doesn't look like bacon." They both very cautiously took bites:


Tyler picked up his "yolk" and showed it to Zachary:


He took a bite and discovered it was a peach half. Zachary informed Tyler that the egg white wasn't an egg (it was yogurt). Tyler also figured out that the bacon was, in fact, cow tails candy cut open and rolled out.

They were good sports considering they had no idea what it was, just sure of what it wasn't. Shayla ate hers without a hitch -- she doesn't yet know what is supposed to look like what, so she didn't care either way. But candy for breakfast? What kid is going to complain about that. I figured I owed them after tricking them last year.

And now I've got a year to think of next year's meal. I've got only one idea left, so let me know if any of you have more!

Drama Queen

Becca is in drama for the second half of the year, and for an assignment they had to do a pantomime with a class member. She and her partner came up with an idea the whole class enjoyed, so they decided to take it to a regional competition this week.

Well, turns out they won!!! Becca got a medal and will be competing at the state competition in a couple of weeks.


Way to go, Becca!!!