{ the end of a full week }

What a week? It has been a good but full and busy week. I have already posted about baby girl and myself, but there are other members of our family too. First off, I have to give big kudos to Bubba this week. He took a trip to Alabama in February with his mom to visit some family and although it was fun, he had to miss 5 days of school and had a lot of make-up work to do. The end of the quarter was yesterday and as of Friday last week he still had a lot of missing assignments and his grades were showing it. Well, from Friday until Friday we devised a plan to get him all caught up. He really busted his tail to get everything made up and all his missing assignments turned in. It really paid big dividends because he was able to bring all of his grades up to a B average for the term. Next quarter, I'm certain he will do even better. We are really proud of him and his hard work this week. Part of the plan to bring up grades was to have him stay here all week and we have really enjoyed having him here.

One of my families favorite things to do is go to the Provo rec center. Once Bubs got all his work done we rewarded the whole family with an evening of swimming. As a parent you know that all your kids getting along at the same time does not happen often, but when it does it is great and on this day all the stars were aligned and all three boys really enjoyed each other.

Garrett's big highlight of the week was presenting his leprechaun trap at school. I'm not a big fan of holiday projects like this. I feel like it glorifies silly holidays and gives parents extra work...but G's teacher actually tied it into a writing and oral presentation assignment so I was OK with it. I also quickly realized the kind of kid I have on my hands. There was no procrastination. He got right to work on it the same day the assignment came home. He drew his plans and got to work trying to build his plans. Unfortunately his plans did not come to fruition and he got frustrated very quickly. So what does any good mom do? They turn to Pinterest because I do not have time to be creative :\ I gave him to iPad to scroll through all the leprechaun trap ideas. He scrolled and scrolled and did not like any of them. He wanted his own idea!!! He did see a few he liked that were made of Legos so he came up with another plan that would work built out of Legos. I can honestly say that I had no part in this. He came up with the idea and built it completely by himself, then he wrote a "how-to" paragraph 100% by himself as well, and to top it off, he practiced his oral presentation all by himself. I am so grateful that this kid is highly motivated and creative and DOES NOT want my help or anyone else's for that matter. The top picture is the before...notice the giant Lego leprechaun and the rainbow and pot of gold louring the leprechaun to come closer, then as the leprechaun gets closer the giant cage on top of the head of giant Lego guy falls on top of the leprechaun trapping him. The bottom picture is the aftermath with the leprechaun trapped.

Today was a beautiful day, Daddy had to work all day so it was just a normal day. Bubba and Garrett cleaned the church grounds this morning, then Bubs went to the baptism of one of the boys in his teacher's quorum. He is the boy of an inactive family. Garrett and Eli raked the back yard of the left over Fall leaves. Then they were rewarded with their first outside lunch of the season. Spring and Summer bring on lots of outdoor eating...less crumbs to sweep and vacuum.  I spent my day cleaning up from my finished painting project. Edith's room looks so pretty in a pale, buttery yellow. Then I decided it was time to get out the bins of clothes I have been collecting to see what I really have and start doing baby laundry. Today is 35 weeks and each week is going my faster and faster. I guess the more kids you have and the more things you have going on, these last few weeks don't drag on nearly as slow as with the first two.

 This is my gorgeous swing that a bunch of my friends went in on and got me for my shower. I love it and I am certain that baby girl will love it too. Hopefully this swing will allow me to get a shower every day so I can feel a little more human like in those first few months. Also, notice the pretty wall color. I am in love with it!