Jacque is 7

Jacuq turned 7 years old today!! I can still remember laying in the hospital, after she was born, and trying to decide on Jacque's name. All throughout the pregnancy, Jacque was going to be Kari Cecile. But the morning I went into labor, Aaron teased that we could call our baby girl Jacque. Then we'd have a Samuel and Jacque, and the Sextons (who we worked for at the time) had a Sami and Jake. We'd be following them. Well he might've just been joking, but I liked the name. I couldn't tell how he really felt, so I kept going back and forth. I think Ori was visiting when we finally decided. It was a very scientific process that we used to settle the question. Aaron took out his pocket watch and we decided that he would flip it, like most people do with a quarter. If it landed heads up, her name would be Jacque. If it was tails, she would be Kari. Well I guess you know the ending of that story.

We love our Jacque Lynn very much! She is probably the most thoughtful child I've ever known. Usually we have the rule, that the presents you get on your birthday are yours for the day, and then you have to start sharing them the next day. Jacque's birthday marks the end of the birthdays for the year (not counting Sarah because this doesn't pertain to her), and each kid has chosen to follow this rule. However, Jacque opened her gifts and then after spending a few times with her new baby doll, was passing it around for everyone else to play with. This baby doll is special. It talks and has a magic spoon that has bananas appear and then disappear as you feed the baby. All the kids were very interested in discovering how the spoon worked, and Jacque was willing to let everyone have a turn exploring it today. Then as she left for school, I figured that she would put the baby away so she'd have a chance to play with it once she got home nad it wouldn't get broken while she was gone. But to my surprise, she told the girls that they could play with it all day! She also told them that if Sarah started crying, they should let her play with the doll! This is how my little Jacque is everyday! She is awesome and I love her so much! Here are some pictures:

My first attempt at making an ice cream cake. It was really good!! I even made my own hot fudge!

I wanted to try and get Jacque a crafty gift, and this is what we came up with. It's a kit to make your own soft book. I'm hoping that we'll learn how to do it with this kit, and then be able to make our own later on with old sheets or fabric. Jacque loves to draw and right, and I think this will be fun for her.

I grabbed a swimsuit for her. Last year, I waited until the middle of the summer, and all the modest swimsuits were all gone. So I learned my lesson early, and bought it before the summer.

The beloved doll!!

A coloring book with stickers.

The Last Supper

This week I wanted to work on celebrating a little of Easter every day. I looked on sugardoodle.net and found different Easter ideas. One of them took the last few days of Christ's life and celebrated a little every day of the week. That's the one I'm following. Yesterday we learned about when Christ entered Jerusalem riding the white donkey. Tonight was the Last Supper. We made a dinner with unleavened bread, grape juice, salad with fruit and vinaigrette dressing, olives, and other fruit. Then we pushed the table back and ate on the floor. The kids also dressed up for the occasion (yes those are pillow cases and sheets). Ellen says, "Am I a shepherd?" But it was the only thing I could come up with and we were eating at 8pm anyway. While we were eating, I talked to them about the last supper and then commented how after the supper, Jesus washed his apostles' feet. The jumped at that. "Mom are you going to wash our feet," they all asked. I actually hadn't thought of it earlier, but I did it. They enjoyed this evening a lot and hopefully they will think of Jesus more this week.

Tomorrow we get to talk about when Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane. The kids are getting excited to see what each night has in store for them. Each day has a story to tell and an activity. It's a lot of fun to see their excitement and to spend so much time thinking about Christ during the week. In the past we've made Easter treats, but schools and communities put so much time into the Easter Bunny, that we haven't succeeded in bringing Christ in as much as we should have. I'm having a great time and I hope the kids will all remember this.

Are you you or are you her?

Growing up, Blaine Allen (an older man in our ward) could never tell my twin sister and I apart. He would always ask me if "I was me today or if I was her." I'd laugh and say that I was me today. Somewhere along the line I learned a saying that helped other people tell Tonya and me apart, "Tia dots the I" (because I have a mole on my left cheek). I never knew where it came from, but it made sense and so I passed it on to everyone I met. It wasn't until several years after I was married, that I found out my father-in-law came up with the saying when he was Bishop. He had a goal of learning every primary child's name, and he came up with that little saying. He tells me that one Sunday, I came up to him, covering my mole and asked him, "Which one am I?" Obviously I'd caught on to his game.

Well, now Tonya and I live 32 hours away so there aren't many people mixing us up anymore. It's probably a good thing too, because on April 4th I got my mole taken off. The scab has finally gone away and it's just a little red spot. It will be interesting to see if it goes away completely without scarring or having pigment remain. The dermatologist said that the mole might actually grow back again too, but we'll have to wait and see. I got the mole off because it kept growing and both Aaron and my mom and dad thought it should probably come off. I had it sent to the lab and the results came back fine.

So now the question comes back again. Am I me, or am I her? Will you be able to tell us apart? Just for the record, I don't think we look that much alike anymore, but then again, I don't have to look at both of us at the same time either.

I actually tried to take pictures of myself for this blog, but they didn't turn out very well. So I'll have to have the kids do it another time.

I'm OFFICIALLY old!

Age doesn't mean anything. I remember being in college and going on a road trip to Utah with my oldest sister. On the way, we stopped by a fruit stand to let her kids stretch their legs. While we were walking around the stand, the owner asked if we were sisters. We said yes, and somehow in our conversation it came up that he thought I was the older one. My sister is 8 years older than I am! Then I can remember on my 27th bday, I was getting sung to in Primary, when the chorister asked how old I was. I answered 27. She looks at me and laughs, "Yeah right. How old are you." I had to answer two more times before she believed me. Supposedly she thought I was at least 33 because I had four children. The chorister turned out to be just a year younger than me, but she only had one child. Well now I am starting to fit my age. I turned the big 30 yesterday!! It's supposed to be my Golden year since I turned 30 on the 30th. We'll see, but I'm excited for this new stage in my life anyway. I just hope the next 30+ years go just as well.

Family Picture

We had our family picture taken the first weekend in March!!! The picture at the top of the blog is it! Don't we look great :) Sorry we didn't get any extras. The school was having a fundraiser where we could get 2 8x10s for $10, so one goes to my house and the other goes to Aaron's work. I would like to have my brother-in-law take our picture again so we can give pictures to the grandpa and grandma's. Again, sorry but you can look at my blog anytime you want to see our beautiful faces :)

Random video

I thought this was cute. You know, a balloon with pop just by looking at it, unless you want it to. Then you could drive your car over it, and it would still be there. I like how Calista is plugging her ears as she's trying to pop this balloon. Sorry, it's pretty dark. The balloon must've had a little hole in it, because at the end, as she stands on it, it loses all the air.

Random pictures

I found these two pictures and thought I'd tell about them. Samuel came home from school looking like this....

I didn't even know it was the 100th day of school. Usually they send notes home and ask the kids to bring 100 something, but not this year. It was a surprise! He wanted me to wear them next, so I did for a little bit. Now the chain is hanging in his room, because you can't just throw something like that away!!

Ellen was in the bathroom one day and said, "Mom come here!" So I come in to the bathroom and she says, "Mom, I can wink!" I said, "Oh yeah? I want to see." And this is what she did...

She's pretty clever for a two year old (she was two when I took this picture). And guess what... she can do it with her other eye too! She thinks she's pretty special. She was so excited and told everyone we were around that she could WINK!