We've been adopted!

Last night, we heard some kind of animal making a crying kind of noise. David investigated and found a tiny kitten in our front yard. Adam fell in love immediately. David told Adam that if "Carmine" (Adam named the kitty) was still here in the morning that we could keep him outside. Well, after weathering a severe thunderstorm in the middle of the night, I opened the door this morning to see Carmine sitting right there staring at the door.

We're pretty sure Carmine is a domesticated kitten who was dumped because he keeps thinking about darting inside and loves to snuggle up with us. Oh - and after checking, I'm fairly certain that Carmine might be a her - - but it's tough to tell when they are this young.

Easter - Bryan style!

Easter started bright and early Sunday morning. However, it was a delightfully long one at home as this is the first Sunday in our marriage (minus General Conference) that we actually got to sleep in! David was released last week as the Elder's Quorum President.

Adam was the first to emerge and he didn't notice the deposits of eggs at first. Once he did, though, the race was on! As he was collecting, however, he worked it out in his head that the Easter bunny hopped around our house while we were sleeping and popped out eggs. What can I say? He's a country boy who has seen how chickens lay their eggs.

Julianna discovered that there was candy inside of those eggs and it was about 3 seconds or less before she was devouring all she could get in her mouth!

After Church we went to Grandma & Grandpa Evans to enjoy a feast of ham and all of the fixins, as well as another Easter Egg hunt.

After our hunt, it was time to head over to Grandma & Grandpa Bryan's house for another egg hunt and supper. Someone was starting to get a little tired...

We also had an unexpected visitor! Uncle Jeremy dressed up as the Easter Bunny. The kids were, of course, delighted! Especially since he came with more goodies! But - - have we mentioned that nothing gets by Adam? After the Easter Bunny said his "goodbyes" and Jeremy sneaked back into the house, Adam asked Uncle Jeremy if he was the Easter Bunny. We tried to pretend like we didn't know what Adam was talking about, but he must be thinking we're all nuts. :)



This bunny became Adam's wrestle-mania opponent.



And then the annual Bryan Family Easter Egg Hunt. Yes, it deserves to be in all-caps because it is practically an olympic sport. It's become a little simpler now that there are little kids looking for eggs, but not by much. It's a boys-versus-girls, 90-egg-total hiding event. This year, the boys hid eggs in the backyard for the girls, while the girls hid them in the front yard for the boys to find. The only rule: at least a part of the egg must be visible. The definition of "part" is extremely subjective and usually the subject of humorous complaints during the hunt.

My little rules keeper...

Adam is a rules guy. The only thing more difficult about being his mom than his need for me to keep the rules I make for him, is his need to enforce the rules on everyone else. We're still working on that. But I am glad that he wants to do what is right.

The other day Adam got to ride in Aunt Karla's car. She reported to us later that while they were en route to their destination, there came a little three-year-old voice telling her that "we're supposed to STOP at stop signs." He apparently followed that up with a discourse on the meaning of various colored street lights (i.e. red means "stop," green means "go," and yellow means "go faster" - thanks to Daddy...).

For the record, Adam congratulated David on his excellent stopping skills last night when we were on our way home from our final Easter Egg hunt of the day.

The Tragic End of Sticky

Two days ago, Adam and I were busy pulling weeds out of the berry patch. Well, I was busy pulling. Adam was busy making friends with a 7-foot stick he named “Sticky.” Apparently, Sticky and Adam were instant best friends (in Adam’s words) and I was even privy to some conversations that Adam and Sticky had. Of course, I could only hear Adam’s side of the conversation…


Eventually, Adam “planted” sticky into the ground and did a remarkably good job of it, too. Adam and I moved on to pull some weeds out of the vegetable garden to the west of our house and said our adieus to Sticky. While in the west garden, Adam pointed out that another stick in that garden was Sticky’s daddy.
 
Last night, as it was David’s night off of school, the three of us returned to the berry patch to burn up the piles of dead brush and last year’s weeds I had been clearing out the previous day. About an hour into our cleanup, suddenly Adam remembered the existence of Sticky who was, of course, no more…
 
“Where’s Sticky?!?” Adam begins semi-frantic search, accurately remembering that Sticky had been planted somewhat close to where David’s burn pile was now beginning to snuff out.
 
David and I hide pained-but-amused looks.
“Maybe Sticky just went to visit his friends in the other garden…” I weakly try.
Adam pauses a moment while standing and contemplating the burn pile.
 
“Or maybe daddy ‘fired’ Sticky,” Adam correctly surmises.
Oops!

Our little stinker-girl!

Julianna has about the pleasantest disposition of any baby I have ever known. She is also quite the clown - - and quite the little devil. I have thwarted her countless times (easily 10 times in the last hour) as she has attempted to get into the bedroom she shares with Adam. I'm guessing that she's gotten a little bored without his badgering - - but she keeps trying to go in to wake him up. After her success with this last week, I have to be extra vigilant!  What is so amusing is that she crawls or walks as quietly as she can  -but the minute she realizes that I'm after her, she goes as fast as she can on all fours. Of course, I catch her (but barely!), and she just lets out squeals of laughter!  She's a stinker, that one, but a charmingly funny little thing, too!

Of course, she's into everything, too. Let's see, today she's managed to completely undo an entire basket of folded laundry, unpack a paper box full of bills and papers, my sock drawer and the towel drawer in the kitchen. She got into the garbage can and found herself a snack from the top of the stack (don't worry - I fished it out of her mouth, already!), and has finally been slowed down by offering her the phone Karlia got her for her birthday (believe me, she knows EXACTLY what it is for!).

AND she just got the china cabinet open and was unloading David's grandma's china from occupied Japan when I caught her!  OI! Busy baby! Adam wasn't this busy!

And all of this in the last hour. I think I'm going to try refolding the laundry - although I'm nuts to do it while she's still up!

More Flurry of activity in the Bryan household...

I'm re-committing myself to more frequent blogging. I do appreciate it as one of the few tools we have to really keeping in touch with everyone, these days. Besides, I'm counting on it as a way of journaling our many activities as a family!

Life continues at strange break-neck speed. Who would have thought that life would be busier as a "stay at home" mom? I'm glad it is, though! We enjoy being anxiously engaged in all good causes, whether it's home/garden maintenance, education, church-related, or just having fun as a family!

Our kids are the most amazing kids, ever. David and I are sorry that no one else (including our own parents) had children quite as amazing, but we'll be glad to share in our experiences with them! :)  Adam is becoming quite the "aware" almost four-year-old. (As as side note - is it possible that he's really almost four?!?!?!?!?!)  One of the biggies is that while he has grown up on all things Star Trek and it has never been a problem in our mind (Sci-fi violence just isn't all that jarring - - at least to an adult), he's lately become panicked over ANY time that a phaser or other gun-like weapon appears on the screen. We've tried to curb his viewing to the most benign episodes, but ANY teeny-tiny-miniscule amount of angst in any tv show freaks him out. We find that we're playing a lot of games, lately and saving tv time for after bed.

Of course, he is the kid who's only problem with Ghostbusters (a year ago) was when the marshmallow man got blown up. He can really send out the most blood-curdling scream! We're not sure if it was the mess that bothered him (because he also gets upset when things break, blow-up or make messes in TV shows), or the fact that it was the marshamallow that blew up that bothered him most.

Julianna is ALMOST walking all of the time on her own. She mostly lacks confidence, so we continue to encourage her and practice as frequently as we can. She's such a clown, though. Her latest thing is, when she's done walking, she's done, and will collapse her legs and hold body, throw her head back, smile, and go limp until we've given up trying to make her walk. She knows exactly what she's doing, too. It's that mischeivous grin that just says it all. And. She wins. There is just no making her do it once she's decided she's done.

She has been a bit alarming these days (in a good way) by giving us a greater idea of her intelligence. On a whim the other day, while she was playing with a green car of Adam's, I pointed to it and explained colors and that it was green. Since I had her full attention, I pointed to several other toys that were also green. I then asked her what was green and she dropped the car and picked up another one of the toys that I had said was green!

I've also observed her picking up toys and putting them in their "proper" place, trying to help me fold clothes (although she doesn't have more success at this than Adam, at this point), and when I told her the sock she was playing with was supposed to go on her foot? She placed it on top of the food that was sockless.

There are many, many more indications of that little girl's smarts, but she's also all baby and all clown. She LOVES climbing up on the couch to the window behind it to look outside for long periods of time. And, while she is not a fan of me walking away or leaving at any time, she's becoming more and more secure in her ability to play and explore on her own.

As for David and I - well - we're great too!  David continues to excel at the culinary arts school at night and work hard at Northwestern Mutual by day. I've enrolled at the New York Institute of Photography and so far have 100% on my quizzes. The biggee, though, is my first photography assignment coming up next week and Unit test. But, so far, so good - we're both loving our respective programs and loving this new adventure we're embarking on!

Me like cookie!

David introduced Julianna to the world of "Thin Mints." It was a success! :)

Adam-isms

Three-year olds are a funny breed. At least, this one keeps me on my toes!

• At Julianna's birthday party, when it was time for her to blow out the candle, he thought Daddy was getting Julianna too close to the lit candle and SCREAMED for daddy not to get her so close. We appreciated that he was so concerned for her safety and well-being!


• Last week, I thought it might be a fun treat to go to our farm-supply store because they had just gotten in a bunch of chicks. So, we went up there so the kids could see them. Afterwards, I decided to see what they had for garden seeds and while I was looking, Adam suddenly realized that the chicks didn't have their mommy with them. Then he decided that their chirping was due to lonliness and that they needed him to come back so they wouldn't be sad. Before I knew it, he was sobbing the saddest tears out of concern for the chicks! The poor employee stocking the shelf next to us was so beside himself, I thought we were going to have a chick to take home with us! (Thankfully, we didn't!)


• This morning, he grabbed my hairbrush and began vigorously brushing his hair. He then informed me that he was trying to get his hair off so that he could be like Captain Picard from Star Trek (Adam's hero). Thankfully, he was no successful! But he did say that he wanted to be bald like him. Apparently he understood this...yikes!

Happy Birthday, Julianna!

Dear Julianna,

You were the splash that rocked our world!

You came into the world when you wanted to - 2.5 weeks before we were anticipating your entrance! You were born in room 912 on the anniversary of Patrick Henry's famous "...give me liberty or give me death..." speech. You amazed us with your very calm nature from the moment you were born - not even crying much each time you got a shot!

These hints of your true nature as an independent, determined, but pleasant young lady has shown throughout your development this first year. You are a joy and delight. It's obvious that you are anxious to make others feel happy and comfortable around you. You are determined and observant.

We are so glad you joined our family! We are so much more complete with you! We love you!

Happy birthday!

Love, Mommy

Oi...cars!

What a week we've had! Our week actually started on the first of this month when David rolled the truck on his way to work. It had been a particularly icy morning. Needless to say, it did not make for a very happy birthday for him!

Well, this past Sunday, we had the Sunday morning we all dream about. We were all bathed, breakfasted, and peacefully ready for church fifteen minutes before we needed to get into the car. I even had time to blow-dry my hair and put on a little nicer outfit than usual. It was amazing! Perhaps it should have been a warning to us...

At the appointed time, we all piled into the car. David put the key in the ignition and turned. Nothing. Barely three little attempts and starting, and then total silence. We were dumbfounded. The radio, lights and heat still came on, but it just didn't have enough juice to turn over. So, he in his suit and me in my Sunday very-best, got out to push and maneuver the car into place. Oh - did I mention that we had a temporary warm-up last weekend enough to make things nice and muddy? Hmmm... yep. Well, we finally got the car into position enough to hook up the jumper cables and thankfully, one little zap and the car came right on.

After church, we got into the car, which was parked next to a family who have had notorious car troubles. As their started right up and ours took about five cranks, I had to laugh at the looks of gratitude on their faces that it wasn't their car for once. :)

Well, we managed to get it over to the parts store after church where we thankfully found it only to be a dead battery. We switched it out with a new battery and returned home where we resumed "perfect sabbath" status. It really was an excellent day.

Then came Monday.

The check engine light came on and it began revving strangely. David took the car over to a neighbor's home who has a diagnostic computer. The code we saw indicated that it was a transmission problem.

By Wednesday, we were able to take the car to a trusted transmission mechanic who said it was not the transmission, but that if he were David, he would look at replacing the fuel filter first and see if that takes care of it. Oh - and those front brakes are bad.

So, it was a much, much cheaper fix. David and his brother, Aaron, replaced the front brakes and fuel filter yesterday. Hopefully that is the end of this tale!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm re-resolving my New Year's Resolutions and making them Valentine's Resolutions. That means - back to blogging! I hereby resolve to keep you posted on our many goings-ons in our family at least on a weekly basis!

I like to say "I love you" in dark chocolate ganache and cherry preserves-filled devil's food cake...

Adam loves decorating sugar cookies and got to decorate this particular batch at Grandma Bryan's. He was given permission to eat only ONE cookie as a treat. Guess which one he picked?

I got to watch my neice, Lylia, on Valentine's Day. Grandma Bryan brought each kid a mylar balloon with this caterpillar tied to the bottom. Adam quickly turned his balloon into a weapon (it's in time out until tomorrow...).

Adam's balloon

Lylia and Julianna had matching balloons.