Welcome Baby Jane!

Hooray! I am an Auntie again! My sweet sister brought her second little daughter into the world today at 1 PM. Jane is a tiny, but very healthy 6 lb. 10 oz. girl with lots of dark hair. Welcome sweet baby. I'm sure there will be pictures forthcoming, especially if Grandpa Larry was around anywhere.

Random items

Ryan has discovered the joys of shaving cream. He must have spent two hours in the tub just smearing it all over himself and anywhere else he could reach. Now that it's getting too hot to play outside during the day, I may be more grateful for this discovery in the near future.

My boys have also found a wonderful use for pool noodles. They cut them in half and use them as lightsabers. They can beat on each other to their heart's content without causing any damage. It has become nearly a daily ritual. My sons are Star Wars freaks. They love to play with the legos and the transformers. It does this mother's heart good to see the boys play together and use their imaginations.

You may have noticed that Ryan is not wearing pants. He's very good about getting them on when we are leaving and when we have company, but as soon as we're home alone, off come the pants! With the weather heating up, I may be joining him. Today we hit our first 100+ degrees. It is going to be a long 8 weeks until I get rid of this little internal heater.

I also thought I'd post a garden update. Our garden has just exploded over the last few weeks. The tomato plants are about 5 feet tall, covered with little tomatoes, and the squash is as big as Ryan. As far as gardening in Arizona, I am a square-foot garden convert. This is the first time we have had any real produce to speak of. As a matter of fact, we had three different kinds of summer squash from the garden with our dinner tonight! There is just something deeply satsifying about that.

Summertime

This week we are officially supposed to clock our first 100 degree day. I am in mourning. I guess I have to be grateful for the months that we have spent enjoying the outdoors while most of you have been hibernating inside. We will be cowering under our airconditioners till mid-November. These pictures were taken at our neighborhood party at the park last week. As you can see from the one of Alex and his friend Ben, tt's already warm enough for snowcones.

Mother's Day was great. This is the first year that Alex has been old enough to really get it. He gave me a packet of lavender seeds to plant in my garden and came into my room grinning with a bowl of Cheerios at 6:30 Sunday morning. He had made my breakfast all by himself. It was perfect. I wondered how my Mom managed to gag down those huge plates of undercooked scrambled eggs. She hates eggs! I'll cross my fingers and hope for Cheerios each year.

Surprise!

Yes, those are pink marshmallows. The girls from my ward threw a suprise baby shower for Jillian on Saturday, the pink marshmallows were part of the decor. They were either really sneaky, or I am just reallly clueless because it was truly a complete surprise. It was also great fun. It put me over the edge from cautiously optimistic to just plain EXCITED!!!! I've never seen so much adorable, pink stuff in one place. They had invited everyone from the ward, my cute neighbors Heidi and Missy, and my sister-in-law, Alison. We had homemade crepes with fruit and cream, we had a baby bottle drinking race (won hands down by my friend Kelly), a blind-folded diaper changing competition and shared much laughter together. I've put in just a few of the photos in this post.

Saturday morning, I thought I was going to breakfast with my girlfriends. On the way out, we just stopped quickly to "drop off some chairs" to one of my neighbors. As soon as I walked in carrying a folding chair and saw all my friends and Alison there, I knew I'd been had! Jilly was given clothing, (including the pink tutu onesie in the picture made by my cub-scout partner in crime, Chira Speers) shoes, hair bows, toys, blankets, jewelry, burp cloths (that are way to cute to mop up barf with) and a tea set. Every little thing that a baby girl could possibly want. There are truly some talented women in our ward, so many of the gifts were handmade.

I am overwhelmed by the out-pouring of love from friends in this place where we have been for so short a time. When we moved way out here, we felt like we had relocated to Mexico. Since then we've found so many wonderful friends and great families out here that we feel blessed to be in this place.

I don't know if these wonderful women will understand the true nature of the gift they have given to me. This first pregnacy after our experience with our sweet son Luke has been full of bittersweet emotions. Being surrounded by such open and unconditional love and excitement has given me a new source of strength. My heart is full of gratitude and love for you all.

Thankyou dear girls from my whole heart. What a wonderful and heart-warming surprise! I can't wait for Jillian to learn about womanhood by watching all of you.

(I don't usually allow photographs of myself when pregnant, so I figured as long as I was breaking the rules anyway, I might as well include the picture in the feathered hat and make a real fool of myself online for all the world to see!)