a few things....

Most of you are already informed on the comings and goings of our family, but I'm going to still give a recap of a few latest happenings for y'all:

First, a few weeks ago, Jared got laid off. It was a bit of a surprise, but not at the same time. We're excited to be job searching again and have Daddy around all the time. We are REALLY hoping to stay here in Georgia, but the unemployment rate is pretty high so we're keeping our options open.

We're tightening our belts, too. Something interesting I noticed today - the last few months we've been trying a different approach to food storage. We have our 72-hour kits and emergency preparedness stuff, but we were told that a good idea to getting that 3-month supply is to just buy twice as much of your staples and usual foods when you go grocery shopping and you'll eventually have a nice little supply of food you actually eat. We now have a decent amount of the canned veggies and pasta and such on hand, so not having to grocery shop very much has been nice and comforting when you eye every penny going out more carefully. I wondered if we were nuts the last few months when we'd buy a big pile of one item and wonder when we'd eat it all, but now I'm grateful for our small stockpile :)

Oh, and speaking of food, there's a website I like that I wanted to share - http://mealplanningmommies.blogspot.com/ . It's a simple blog some nice ladies out there have where they plan meals and put them all out there - always simple, they give you the cost per serving and even put pictures of every step up! I haven't made too many of their meals, but I love the way they blog and make it all so easy and understandable - and it gives me ideas of my own.

Now, this last weekend was one heckuva whirlwind for us - my brother Quinn got married in San Diego and Jared and I flew out Friday, got there just before the ceremony, then flew back the next (EARLY!) morning and I rushed out to play a gig that night. We knew it was going to be exhausting but we also knew it would be worth it. It was wonderful to go to the temple and be around so much family and celebrate a new member of our family.

She is really, really short compared to Quinn and the rest of the family:

Quinn was really happy:

And I couldn't get enough of how beautiful it was, and mainly how GOOD it smelled on the temple grounds!:

I didn't get any family shots because - well, trying to get my family together to do anything really is like hearding cats. It drives Jared completely bonkers. But it was so, so good to see everyone and feel that happy feeling you can only get when the whole family is together. Our newest sister-in-law - Mara - is actually from Brasil so now Jared has someone to make snarky comments about the rest of us with in Portuguese. He still has to watch himself though - I still know about 4 words in Portuguese and I'm not afraid to use 'em.

Solei is still the smartest, weirdest and funniest kid we know. Her reading vocab has grown and she'll not beg us to help her "build a word." She can spell her name and loves learning new words to recognize - like sun, fun, mommy and daddy, cat, dog, etc., but she keeps begging us to teach her "bum." Weirdo.

Oh, and in case you didn't get the memo, I'm 5 months along now and the baby in my tummy is a dude. Still processing that - but please do NOT try to cheer me up about it - I was an only girl with 3 brothers so the idea of having to deal with a little boy is NOT something I relish. And if you tell me I'll love the boy when I meet him, remember I couldn't really stand Solei until she could talk - not a big fan of the baby stage, remember? Cool thing about Solei is she advances so fast, she is always quickly becoming something I can handle and dig. We do know Heavenly Father gives us no more than we can take, so we're expecting another genius kid (I'm REALLY hoping for a clone of my younger brother Dallin).

OH - and this is good for a laugh. A few weeks ago during Family Home Evening, Solei did something completely unexpected during lesson time and PAID ATTENTION. I was just shocked and realized I had to make this story about Easter and the ressurection good - but was unprepared since Im not used to her paying attention to my stories. How do you explain coming back to life to a 2 year old without her assuming really odd things about death?? I muddled through it and even Jared thought I'd made it as easy to understand as possible, as well as engaging (hey, she was paying attention!) When I got done, I asked her if she understood me, and she nodded her head gravely and whispered to me in a serious voice -

"Daddy's going to kill us."

WHAT?!?! I couldn't stop laughing and Jared was completely befuddled. Now, she adores daddy and knows he's wrapped securely around her little finger, so where she came up with that, we'll never know. But she took comfort in the fact that later we could be ressurected. I think I need to work on my lessons...

And, okay, one more bit of toddler hilarity - today I was standing in front of the silverware drawer that we was trying to open. She told me to move - which I didn't do, and reminded her (for the 74th time today) that NOT how we talk when we ask for something, so she sighed and said "May I PLEASE have a get out of the way??" This time it was Jared's turn to laugh.

And now you're all up to speed! We know we're not the only ones in the unemployment boat, and we're praying for those of you who are with us in that. Here's to hoping for good times ahead!