Their First Batch

I have heard of other mothers letting their kids make cookies all by themselves and I just couldn't get my mind passed all of the potential mistakes, messes, fighting, and danger to let myself allow it. But, I finally did. I let them make cookies all by themselves. They did a good job. Only one temper tantrum (by me). I then decided to leave the room and let them handle things themselves. Success! Yummy cookies and happy girls! After Mally tried her first cookie she said with a proud smile, "they even taste like real cookies." Good job girls. Here's to many more batches. 

His Name in Lights!

Stephen's dream came true on Saturday at the family screening of Turbo. His name appeared in the movie credits. This is the first of hopefully many movie credits to add Stephen J. Ward to their list of contributors. It was a proud moment for us. 

A photo of the credit screen as his name scrolled by. 

It's a fun action packed film. Kids will love it. I loved how life like some of the car and racing scenes looked. Very cool graphics. Sadly, my baby was too wiggly for it and I spent much of the time in the hall trying to catch her from crawling away. I would have much rather been watching a snail zooming away. 

Kid + iPhone =

Below is a sampling of what you might get when your kid steals your iPhone. This clip has over 100 photos she took of herself. Enjoy seeing Eva in action. 

And It's Off

  Eva only had to have her cast on for 3 weeks, thank goodness. It was a stinky 3 weeks. It's so hard for kids to keep casts dry and clean. When they removed the casted they asked if we would want to keep it. No! Gross! I thought. Why would I want that stinky thing?

   Throughout this whole broken arm experience she has been a really good sport. She was excited about getting her cast off until they began cutting it off. She got really scared. She told me after in tears that she thought she was going to die. I felt bad. She was very brave. 

Living Among the Dead

There is nothing like being among the dead to make you appreciate your life and birthday. We spent my birthday at the Golden Gate National Cemetery doing a Mormon Helping Hands service project. We cleaned rows and rows and rows of headstones. Some dating back to the Spanish American Ward, or as Stephen liked to say, the "SPAM war." Here are the pics:

The Birthday Fairy visited me in the night. See the "34?"

The happy cleaners. 

The "SPAM War." Too bad we lost that war. SPAM needed to be stopped. 

She found a person with her same birthday and the same birthday and year as Grandpa Ward. 

Even with just one good arm she was still my best worker. 

I have a great respect for the people buried at the National Cemetery.  I could feel that it is hallowed ground. It was a honor to give a bit of service to those who gave the ultimate price for our nation and freedom.

Lucy on the Loose

 I have had a request (from Sarah) to add Lucy pictures. So Sarah, here you go.

The happy crawler.

Look closely and you can see her first tooth. 

Lucy is 10 months old and today she crawled for the frist time. She as been able to scoot backwards for a week or so, but now she is actually crawling in the right direction. I don't know if I should be happy or concerned. I have to admit, it has been nice to be able to set her down and know that she wasn't going anywhere or getting into anything.

The Break

Sling and bandages removed and waiting for the doctor to put on her cast. 

The kid with a cast. She wanted the cast rainbow with sparkles. They couldn't do that, so she opted for red.

A ballerina with a break. 

The broken arm hasn't held her back. She is still as energetic and crazy as always. 

Another Great Discovery

We spent the afternoon at Ardenwoon Historic Farm and we LOVED it! I think it is another favorite place to add to my list of great places to take my kids. The grounds are the original victorian home and farm of the Patterson family. It is still a working farm and demonstrates 19th century farm techniques. The place is charming, fun and peaceful. We took a train ride, fed the farm animals, pet the baby lambs, smelled the stinky pigs, toured the victorian home, and strolled the picturesque grounds. The place is magical. I heard that millions of monarch butterflies winter in the forest there. So, we will have to go back in the winter to see that. We enjoyed every minute of our afternoon. We will definitely be back many times. http://www.ebparks.org/parks/ardenwood

The Victorian Patterson Home. We got a personal tour.  The home is completely furnished and stocked  just as if the original family still live there.  Ninety-five percent of the artifact's are antiques of the Patterson family. It was amazing. 

Spring Break to Arm Break

This has been spring break for us. Stephen took a few days off of work so we could go on a little vacation. We traveled south to visit Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea. The trip was nice. We saw the Monterey Bay Aquarium, played at the Dennis the Menace Playground, toured the historic mission in Carmel, and played at the beach in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Here are the pics:

Mally looking for wildlife in the Monterey Bay. We saw sea otters. 

Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo

Eva outside the old mission doors.

Touring the mission grounds. 

The living quarters. 

The view of the ocean near the mission. 

Flying kites at the beach. 

Stephen's dinner, huge blueberry pancakes as big as his plate.  He was glad he got the short stack. 

Stephen took the girls on a paddle boat ride around the Dennis the Menace Park. 

No enjoyable spring break would be complete without a mishap. Luckily we got ours after we arrived home from our vacation. I took the girls on a bike ride to the school grounds to play and get out their wiggles from the long car ride home. We were there for just a matter of minutes before Eva fell from the monkey bars and landed on her elbow. She immediately screamed and complained about her arm hurting. But Eva is ALWAYS quite dramatic about EVERYTHING so I tried to get her to calm down so I could make a better assessment of her arm and see if it really needed medical attention.  Of course she didn't really ever calm down. So I called Stephen to pick us up and take her to the ER.

Don't let this picture fool you, she is really happy to have a broken arm. 

Yes, she was right. It really was broken. Just a small crack near her elbow. She left for the hospital obviously distraught and scared and came home a few hours later cheerful and proud of her broken arm. Mallory is jealous of it. She wants a broken arm too. Eva will get a cast in a few days. She hopes she can get it in her favorite color, rainbow sparkle.

"The Croods" A Family Adventure

Join the Croods for the first prehistoric road trip.

Popcorn? Check. Drink? Check. 3-D glasses? Check. Eva is ready for the movie to start.  

Even Lucy's ready. But is Stephen ready to hold a wiggly baby the whole time? 

Here we are at the screening of DreamWorks' new movie "The Croods." We loved the movie! I would describe it as a total family adventure. The show is packed with adventure and creative prehistoric creatures (I loved the feathered flying turtle, my girls like the walking land whale). It all takes place in a spectacular prehistoric world. Quite a sight to behold.

The theme of the movie for me was family unity. The Croods are definitely a caveman family whose survival is dependent upon each member of the family. From baby to grandma to rebellious teenage daughter to overprotective father, each member has it's important place. There were some tender moments that had my eyes watering. Like the "hug" scene with the daughter and dad. Oh, that was sweet.

Despite the name "Croods," the movie is not at all crude, something I REALLY appreciate. No bad words, no potty humor. Just good old clean adventurous fun. It's a great family film.

Over dinner we found ourselves quoting the movie. Here are some of our favorite lines:
"Release the baby!"
"Uh, I don't have a brain."
"I call it hug. It rhymes with Grug."
"Hi Guyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..........!"
"Dun, dun, dun.........."

These probably make no sense, until you see the movie. So, I guess you better see the movie. Take the whole family. They'll enjoy it.

As a side note and to support my opinion that it's a great family film, the CEO of DreamWorks Jeffrey Katzenberg shared this story with the company and I thought it was nice and worth sharing as well. After a screening of The Croods for mommy bloggers in New York City, a teenage girl approached one of the movie directors who was hosting the screening and motioned that she wanted to say something to him. He went over to her and she simply said, "thank you for helping me understand my dad."

Here are some good clips from the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoEBWrnZJrk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi1r55txkA8

A Bloody Mess

Mallory smacked the top of her head on a metal bar at a kids' indoor playground. Mallory, Eva and her friends came screaming to me that she hit her head. Blood was oozing everywhere. Her head and face were covered in it. I can't really remember all that happened next. All I could think about was trying to keep calm and put pressure on her head. There was so much blood I couldn't tell where the cut was. It took a while of cleaning before I could find the spot. Luckily it wasn't very big and the bleeding seemed to be stopping. The direct pressure and the ice seemed to be working. But it was a bloody mess. Her hair and my arms were red with blood. It was quite traumatic for both of us.

Luckily, my friend and her kids just happened to be there that afternoon, too. She was a big help with my other kids and my sanity.

An aftershot of her almost all cleaned up. 

I headed down to the emergency room and planned to meet Stephen there. But since the bleeding had stopped and the cut was only about a 1/4" long we opted for performing the "surgery" ourselves in the Safeway parking lot with super glue. 

The super glue seems to be holding and her spirits are up. I hope this never happens again. Never, ever, ever. 

Love Everyone. Period.

As I get older and "wiser" and my life and the world get more busy and complicated I find that truly the most important thing to strive for in life is love. I guess that is what Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have been telling us all along. 

Mark 12:30: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

But loving is a hard commandment to follow. I wish I could just simply love first and not judge someone and try to determine if they are "worthy" of my love. 

I can think of two different times when I met someone and right off the bat I decided I liked them and even told them right then that I liked them. I think there is power in that. Deciding from the beginning that I liked them settled it in my mind that they were my friend. I didn't have to go through the process of meeting, getting to know them, and then judging them to determine if we had enough similarities and common interests to deem them "worthy" of my friendship. I just choose to like them. In both of these cases I still consider that person my friend. I need to always make the decision to just love first. Maybe that's why we have the phrase "love at first sight."

To quote one of my favorite books, "I guess I don't know why I like you really... I guess I just like you because I like you." -I Like You, by Sandol Stoddard Warburg. 

Happy Valentine's Day!
Love Your Friend, 
                              Jeana 

P.S. I think the best movie love story is from "Up." I can't watch it without crying. 

Our Little Fireball is 5

Eva is our strawberry blond. And with that little bit of red comes a whole lot of fire and spiciness. She is packed with personality and energy. She is sweet one moment, but it only lasts a moment, and then she is exploding with fiery anger. She is a handful. And as of today she is officially a whole handful (5). 

A very common Eva glare. I see this look too often. 

Playing with Lucy. 

These two truly are best friends. 

Eva loving Lucy. 

Most afternoons she can be found wearing her princess dress and speaking with a French accent. 

Here she is with her preschool/church buddy. 

Today at preschool we celebrated her B-day. 

She's a beauty. You got to love her.