Family Pics

We are back from a wonderful, fun-filled trip to Montana. It was 10 days of awesome! When I download the pics off of my camera, I'll post all about the cabin.


While we were in Montana, we had the opportunity to take some family photos, the first we've taken in nine years because of all of the sibs going on missions. Sadly, we were still missing our brother Ben and my Todd but it was still the largest group of family we've had in a long, long time.

Here is the Larson Clan:


The Mamacita and the Papa:


The Brothers:


The Sissies:


The Granchilluns:



The concerted effort to get all the grandchildren to look at the camera at the same time:






Candid shots:

Ezzie's birthday and Baseball

Well, I certainly am an inconsistent blogger, aren't I? I could blame it on lots of things if I wanted: the craziness of getting ready to move next week, this long, drawn-out pregnancy (I guess it isn't really drawn-out. My guess is that the baby will probably make his entrance after the standard nine months), working my bum off as relief society president, baseball usurping our lives for the last two and half months...but honestly, the real reason is just plain laziness. The two hour naps I've been prone to taking every afternoon for the last 2 months have also probably contributed to my lack of motivation. Speaking of stolen afternoon naps...I have a clever strategy I use when I answer the phone to hide the fact that I've been snoring away only seconds before; I sing a few scales (La,la,la,la,la,la,la) before I say "hello", thereby banishing the groggy, tongue-slurred speech that is dead give-away.

Back to the topic at hand: I will always be able to find a million excuses for not blogging, but I've decided instead to look for reasons to blog.

One great reason is my Ezzie June's 6th birthday. I love this child. I have felt an especially tender connection with him since the day of his birth. He is sweet, sensitive, artistic, and just plain beautiful. He has an old, wise soul in that little six year-old body of his.








We have a tradition in our family that the birthday child is king for the whole day. He wears a crown and gets to order all of his loyal subjects around. We respond by bowing and saying, "As you wish, Oh royal King." Ezra gave all of us titles in his royal kingdom. Of course I was the royal Queen. Todd was the royal knight, Jonah was the royal Jack...and Reuben was the Royal Slave!







For the next part of this post I am going to gripe and complain for a bit. I can never say the word "baseball" without saying "grrrrrr" under my breath at the same time. When I say that baseball (grrr) has usurped all of our time for the last two and half months, I am not exaggerating. We found ourselves marking time at the baseball fields at least four days each week (I guess that is what happens when you have two players and they both have two practices and two games every SINGLE week). Gone are the days when kids organized their own practices and gmaes in the empty lots behind their houses. We live in a time where soccer moms and baseball moms, day in and day out, have to load up their kids, drive some distance to scheduled practices, wait on the field for practice to wrap up, and then drive their kids home or on to another lesson. And what's up with playing a sport 4 days a week for heaven's sake! Why does the sport have to take over the lives of entire families. What happened to the well-rounded child and what happened, for that matter, to unstructured free time? HUH?

Now that I've got that off my chest, here are some cute pictures of my little sluggers:).











And of course, let's not forget their little fans:

Easter Picture Woes

Why is it so, so difficult to get one decent picture of my kids?




I mean, is it so hard for all three of my boys to look at the camera on the count of three and say cheese?



Apparently it is:




Just smile, dag nabbit!





Those smiles look a little forced, guys.



Things are finally looking up.





At last, 30 pictures later, one decent shot.




Sweet Brothers:



Thank goodness Mom is done. We are EXHAUSTED!

It's for the Birds

There is a poor, deranged cardinal that lives in a tree near my backyard. As I am typing this post, I am hearing the rap, rap, rap as the cardinal slams his beautiful, red-feathered body against the french doors leading out to the back porch. This suicidal tendency of my scarlet friend has been going on several times a day for the last two weeks. At first I thought I was the one who was nuts. I would be cleaning the house and hear someone knocking on the french doors only to find no one there each time I came to look. I decided to get clever and I snuck up to the door very quietly the next time I heard the noise, and LO and BEHOLD! I caught my friend red-handed as he dashed away in a red-feathered flurry. Why does this poor, beautiful bird continually pummel himself against the glass? Does he like the color of my red-hued family room? Is he mistaking his reflection as a rival or a potential mating partner? Or has he just lost his poor bird-brained mind?


Speaking of birds--Our dear, dear mourning doves have returned. Jonah did a report on mourning doves for school last year, so we learned all about them. They are beautiful, graceful birds. The coo--coo sound they make sounds like someone in mourning; hence the name. A mourning dove pair mates for life. They stay faithful to each other until one or the other dies. Each Fall, they fly south; each Spring they return to the exact same spot to build a nest and have their young. Both the birds labor together to build a loose grassy home for the eggs. The father also takes a turn sitting on the eggs while mother goes to get food.

This is our third spring living in this house, and each spring our mourning doves build their nest in the exact same spot, where the porch roof meets the porch. The nest is practically eye level with Todd, so we get to see everything up close and personal. The mourning dove mother always lays two eggs. The new hatch lings are called squabs. They stick their little beaks in the beaks of their parents and gulp down regurgitated seeds. It is very fun to watch. The mother and father mourning doves are very protective of their young and they never leave their children unguarded until they fly from the nest. Last year, I sat on the floor of the family room watching the squabs try out their wings with mother dove gently edging them out of the nest. I was determined to see the squabs' first flight. After two hours, the squabs still hadn't flown the nest, so I gave up on them. Later that afternoon, I walked by the french doors and saw that the nest was empty.

Here is a picture I took this afternoon of mother mourning dove sitting on her eggs:




I can't wait for them to hatch!

Here is a picture of my three squabs trying to catch some rays last weekend after sliding down the slide into the kiddie pool:

Richmond Cannery Adventure

I've got happy news! We finally have a year's worth of food storage, a 72 hour kit, and a two weeks supply of bottled water.

It feels so good to be obediant and it's a relief to know that whatever else happens in this crazy world, we'll be able to feed our children. We've been working on this goal for a long time. We first worked toward a three month supply. When we reached that goal, we focused on water and emergency kit acquisition. Then we saved and scrimped our pennies together (so long big screen t.v. dream) until we'd saved enough to get the nine months of long-term food storage.

Last Saturday, Todd and I pawned our kids off on some ward members and headed up to the Richmond cannery. We canned 1,100 pounds of wheat and beans in about 5 hours with some help from other cannery patrons.

As the boxes of #10 cans began to pile up, I became worried that we wouldn't even come close to fitting them all into our Acura Legend. Somehow, clever Todd managed to fit all 31 boxes into the car with literally NO room to spare. The trunk was stuffed, our seats were scooted as far forward as they could go, and boxes were piled from floor to ceiling in the back seat.

Before we climbed into our cramped quarters for the drive back, we saw that our poor car was so weighed down that it only had a 1/2 inch clearance from the road! Everytime we went over a bump or a rough patch in the road, we heard a scraping noise. Our muffler was in grave distress! We received many strange looks as drove home on the 64, but thank goodness, we made it home with no permanent damage. And so ends our food storage adventure.

A Sheepish Hello

Hi Friends. I'm feeling, shall we say, a bit sheepish for not posting for almost two months. I do have an excuse, though. I think it's an excellent one. I'm pregnant. I'm finally wrapping up that dreadful first trimester and I can actually see beyond trying not to lose my cookies and my next nap.

The best part of February: My sweet Jonah boy was baptized! Here is his invitation:





It was a beautiful baptism and my pregnancy hormones made me extra emotional. Todd's parents and his brother, Boo and sister, Angela flew out for the big event.




Here is Jonah with friends, Marshall and Charlie,chowing down on barbeque beef buns after the baptism:






This is what Jonah wrote in his baptism memory book (I hope he doesn't mind me posting it): "After I got Baptized, I felt like I was perfect as Jesus. I felt like I was fresh out of the box. I felt like Satan (or Lucifer) was gone forever." (I love this child.)

Moving on....today I woke up to three kids deliriously jumping all over me. "Look out the window! There is snow EVERYWHERE!!!!" Sure enough there was! This is our first snow storm since moving to Virginia almost three years ago. I'll admit even I was excited at the 1 inch of snow on the ground. The kids begged me to get their snow gear out of storage in the garage and by eight o'clock, they were dressed and ready to go out and make snowballs.


ANTICIPATION:





Can we go out already??!!!





And They're Off!!!!








Later on, after the older boys were off to school, my neighbor invited Reuben and I to go sledding with her. "Sledding?", I queried, "Isn't Norfolk Flat?" Turns out, there are a few man-made "bumps" near our house at Northside Park.