Birthday Wishes

Koo made the wonderful coconut cake for the birthday party/Mother's Day celebration we had for Grandma Johnson and Mom. Both of them celebrated birthdays in the weeks before they came out to see us. Calvin is always asking for birthday cakes, but he NEVER eats them - I'm not sure why. The coconut cake was no exception.

Baptism

Max was baptized last Saturday. Mom, Dad and Grandma Johnson as well as Koo, David and Trisha and their kids came to see his big day. It is amazing to me that I have a child old enough to be taking this step! Max is an amazing child - so inquisitive and smart and playful - in short, quite a handful! He was very nervous on this day as I watched him sitting in the front row, waiting for his time to go up front. He was the only baptism that day and his primary teacher gave the opening prayer and our new home teacher gave the talk - mom gave the closing prayer. We were very grateful to be able to share this day with our family!

Bryan was able to baptize Maxwell and my Dad did his confirmation with our Bishop, Bryan and David in the circle with him.
After the baptism, we took everyone out to breakfast at Jensen's!
Calvin LOVES baby Matthew. He uses this little baby voice and says "oh, look at the baby! I wanna hold the baby!"

Out of Towners

On Thursday of last week my Dad and Grandma arrive for Max's baptism weekend and Koo's graduation. My mom arrived on Friday. We had a very busy weekend with all of the family events, but we also spent some wonderful time just hanging around the house together and catching up. Dad and Grandma had to leave on Tuesday, but Mom is here for another week!

Max and Grandma share a love for Chinese checkers though the adults played "owen" more times than I can remember!

We did some baking - big surprise!

We all were in the middle of books - Dad read Rule of Four and a The Broker while he was here. Mom just finished Twilight and New Moon.


The kids loved sneaking down in the morning and climbing in bed with Grandpa to wake him up! There is no privacy in our house - we do not have a guest room so Dad and Mom were in the living room at the bottom of the stairs! Grandma slept in Sophie's pink room which Sophie was extremely pleased about!


We went to the park that is 2 blocks from our house. Johnny and Calvin love the swings . . .


. . . especially if Grandpa pushes them!


Sometimes Grandpa joins the fun himself!


This is the pond by the park - there are birds everywhere right now!


We spent one morning at the sculpture garden in Minneapolis and then toured around the downtown lakes looking at all of the gorgeous mansions.

Look who's back!

Look who Mommy found buried under a winters worth of junk in the minivan?! That's right, Hobbes is back - and on the same day that daddy finally found replacement Hobbes at the 12th Walgreen's he visited!!!
There was much rejoicing from Calvin!

Piano Recital!

Max had his piano recital last week on Monday night. Our piano teacher (Mrs. Friend) teaches half of our ward though she is not LDS. To accommodate all of her LDS kids, she has a special non-Sunday recital for them on Monday night. Max did a great job - he had his piece memorized a long time ago and we were very proud of him!

Some of the other piano students after the recital.
Max and his teacher and Calvin.
I think Sophie may start lessons in the fall.

The Host Tour - Mom's Day Off!

So, confession time. I love the Twilight books - LOVE them! I realize they are not the next Jane Eyre, but I think they are a marvelous little story and I literally inhaled them when my friend Susan lent them to me in January. Actually I read the first book and then threw the kids in the car, raced to Barnes and Noble and bought the two sequels in hardcover. Stephenie knows how to tell a good story, one that has found a huge fan base in both the tween/teen girl market and also with adult women like myself. I have strong opinions about the movie, but that is another thread altogether.
On the 6th, Bryan gave me the gift of a day off from being a mom. I met up with Julie and Jenny and about 40 women from the Twilight Moms message boards at the Mall of America for the book signing for Stephenie Meyers new book, The Host. We spent the day getting to know each other, reading The Host and wandering around the mall. Lori stopped by to visit as well as other friends from our ward. By the time Stephenie arrived to have a discussion and sign books, there were well over 1000 people there with the line snaking around the hall for 1/2 mile! We were in the first row and were able to chat with the author for a few moments as she signed our books.
Julie and Jenny with their books!
We brought camp chairs to hang out in during the day.The whole rotunda was filled and then they started another line down the hall!
Kelly came with her kids at about 5:30 and when it came time to sign books, Stephenie's publicist came over and insisted that she go first as she had her kids with her!

Stephenie has an amazing story. She attended BYU the same time as I did and went on to marry and become a stay at home mom with 3 children. When her oldest was 6, she had a dream about a boy and a girl in a meadow and then next night she started writing Twilight. Within six months of having the dream, she had finished Twilight, found a literary agent, gotten Twilight published and secured a 3 book deal for sequels! She has since written three sequels to Twilight (Breaking Dawn comes out in August), sold the movie rites to Twilight (the movie comes out in December) and wrote and published The Host, her first adult work of fiction. It is really a remarkable story and all 5 of her books are currently in the top 17 books on Amazon.com!
By the way, The Host is very good. I finished it the day after the signing. It took me about 50 pages to really get into it, but when I finished, I found I just wanted to find someone to discuss it with. I loved the complex characters and how vastly different the journeys are that they take during the course of the novel. I do not usually like sci-fi, but I would recommend this one.

What's Blooming in the Garden

I can still hardly believe that spring has arrived, but the gardens have blossomed this last week! The rabbits have eaten a good number of the tulips this year and the hard, long winter has killed off some of the daintier plants, but the hardy varieties made it through and are gorgeous!

Card Class May

Here are the photos of the baby cards I am teaching for card class this month (thank you to Trisha for the idea!). All of the supplies can be purchased at Archivers. If you would like a copy of the supply list, let me know and I will email it to you! Or, just print off the photos and take them to the store to find the supplies.

Baby Boy Front:
Baby Girl Front

Sunday afternoon in the Park

While we waiting for David and Trisha to get out of church last Sunday, Bryan drove us over to a local park where he likes to run. It was a gorgeous day and Bryan led us on a 2 mile loop around one of the lakes. We should have planned ahead and worn sensible shoes!!

Yes, Max needs a serious haircut.
LOOK!! Signs of spring!
Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin lost Hobbes on this day - not at the park, but we cannot find him. There have been many tears and sad wailing of "I need Hobbes! . . . Hobbes is frightened of the scary monsters! . . . We need find him! . . . " We're still looking.

The two miles got a little long for Calvin since all of the kids ran most of the way.

We saw lots of turtles out in the sun . . .
The kids looked really hard for fish . . .
Sophie kept yelling "take a picture of me!" as we walked along the trail . . .
and I did . . .
Such a pretty place and a beautiful day!