Even though I was woken up at 5:45 this morning, cleaned up pee off my floor twice, and ended up eating a cold chicken quesadilla for lunch I had a great day! Potty training time has officially arrived at our house and Max went to the bathroom twice today without any prompting or help from anyone! Woohoo!!! I'm so excited to not have two kids in diapers!

Mother's Day Conversation

Jeff and Max made me pancakes this morning. I could tell when they brought them to me that Jeff had been coaching Max to tell me, "Happy Mother's Day!". It was so cute and sweet and Max remembered what he was supposed to say and then they left me to enjoy my breakfast in bed while they went back downstairs to eat their own breakfast. After Max was done eating he came to check on me.

Max: "Where's your pampakes, Mommy?"
Me: "I ate them."
Max: "You ate them?"
Me: "Yeah, I ate them. They're in my belly."
Max: (In an aggravated tone and pointing his finger repeatedly at me) "Aughhh! Those were for Mother's Day!"

15 month check-up

Emily had her fifteen month check-up today. She's had a growth spurt and was 50% on her weight (22.5 lbs.) and 70% on height (31 in.). I don't know why it matters, but I was really hoping she'd get back up on her height percentage. It seemed weird to me that Jeff and I would produce a child who would be in the 20% for height like she has been the last couple of check-ups.

The picture is Emily doing her kissy lips. She sure can pucker them up and gives the sweetest kisses, even if Jeff doesn't think so. (He has an aversion to anything slobbery.) She says three words that we can recognize: shoe, hi, and drink. She loves to accessorize. She always wants a pair of shoes on and loves carrying around anything that resembles a purse. She also loves hats, necklaces, bracelets, dresses, etc. The last few months she has gotten very loud in expressing her opinion and has quite the squawk when things aren't going the way she would like. It sure makes church interesting and embarrassing. I'm hoping as she learns to talk she'll outgrow it. She definitely has no problem communicating what she wants with such a limited vocabulary. She sure is a cutie and we love having her in our family!

I buzzed Max's hair a few days ago. His lack of hair reminds me of when he was a baby and he had cheeks so big that we called them jowls.

Mini Mission Reunion

Last night we got to host a little reunion from Jeff's mission. Jeff and his mission companion, Steve (who after their missions became Jeff's roommate), baptized the Rojas family 14 years ago while they were serving in the Tacoma, Washington mission. Today their youngest daughter, Victoria, is going into the MTC. We were so excited to get a chance to see most of the family and to get a chance to see Steve and his family as well.

We had fajitas with Jeff's yummy beans. In fact Jeff really was in charge of this meal and it was delicious. Homemade refried beans, fajita meat, and guacamole all made by Jeff. We had two more people than I was expecting and I was so impressed that we were able to fit 15 people into our kitchen for dinner. We always love it when we get to see the Rojas family. Even though most of the conversation is in Spanish I still feel so welcome and loved.

Jeff and Steve got to spend a few hours talking with our guests while Amy and I took care of the five little ones. I really enjoyed getting a chance to talk to Amy since I've only met her once or twice but feel like I've got to know her so well through blogging. The kids played great together. They jumped on the trampoline, Blake climbed some trees, and they played in Max's room. Max and Alison had a lot of fun playing with the toy kitchen and were so cute "cooking" for each other. Ali would remind Max they needed to say a pray and Max would pour her some "chocolate". It was so fun to see them all having such a great time together.

We had so much fun and can't wait until the next time we get to see everyone!

Jeff and Steve with the Rojas family.

Cruz, Jeff, Rogellio, Steve

Victoria, Veronica, Soccoro, Miguel

Cruz's daughter Vanessa

The Palmer family.

Alison, Steve, Blake, Amy, and Tyler

The Smell of Sweet Success

I felt like the little red hen today. Not only did I make this beautiful loaf of whole wheat bread, I ground the wheat by hand first. It took a long time. I think we might need to invest in an electric wheat grinder. Still, I was so proud of my beautiful, yummy loaves of bread. Now I'm just wondering if I'll really be able to make enough to satisfy Jeff's love of bread.

(I tried several recipes in my quest for homemade whole wheat bread but my favorite was from this blog. She even has a video on making bread that is really helpful in case any of you are interested.)

POST EDIT:
Apparently I am making myself appear more homemakery than I really am. Jeff says I need to post more about all my failed attempts. In the interest of not having a long post I failed to mention that this is at least my 10th attempt at homemade wheat bread in the past two months. Most of my other attempts were dense and crumbly or doughy in the center. I was almost to the point of giving up on ever making a decent loaf of bread. The only reason I ground my wheat is because I had no wheat flour in the house, had no money left in the budget to go out and buy wheat flour, I wanted to try out the wheat grinder Jeff's parents gave us for our birthdays and I have heard how wonderful white wheat is vs. red wheat and wanted to try that out as well. I certainly don't spend my days out in the field shucking wheat and then come home and sew my entire family matching outfits for Sunday the next day. Sorry to disillusion you Shannan! ;)

Easter Sunday

We had such a great Easter. The kids came downstairs first thing to find their Easter baskets. Max just wanted to play with his Hot Wheel's cars that he got, but Emily immediately shoved some jelly beans in her mouth and proceeded to find three eggs before Max even realized that the Easter Bunny had hidden eggs all over the house. I had one of those moments were I felt like my mother when one of the eggs wasn't found and I couldn't remember where it was. I guess we'll find it some time. Jeff wondered if it made me feel like my mother because I couldn't remember where it was hidden or because I couldn't seem to stop trying to find it for the next 30 minutes. To be honest, I'm not sure.

The kids got new Easter clothes. I made Emily's dress but not Max's clothes, which I kind of feel a little guilty about. I had prepared myself for Max to have a hard time putting on new church clothes, but that went over fine until we got to the new shoes. What followed was 15 minutes of screaming as we tried to get Max's shoes on. I ended up taking pictures of Emily in her dress while Jeff, who is the calm one, managed to get Max's shoes on. (They ended up coming off in nursery after all that work.) Because of the shoe debacle I got one lone picture of Max in his new clothes before we had to rush out the door to church. I was singing in the ward choir and was excited to sing the beautiful cantata we have been working on for the last few months. Our last song always makes me cry and I was trying the whole time to keep it together so that I could sing. I love songs about the Savior, especially on Easter and Christmas. What a great time of year Easter is!

After church we headed up to Jeff's parents for Easter dinner and another egg hunt for the kids. I always love going to Jeff's parents. Their house just feels so comfortable and Jeff's family is just the nicest family I've ever met. I am so blessed with my in laws and the kids LOVE going to Grandma and Grandpa's house.