Finally captured on camera

Well the hunt to catch our cardinal on camera was finally successful.  I can now move on with other endeavors in life.  A week ago Neil saw a flash of red go past the window while he was eating breakfast.  I went outside and saw the cardinal up on a wire.  He flew down to the ground and I got a couple of pictures before he flew away.  Sadly, none of the pictures were really that good.

Yesterday while I was in Roanoke with Emma for her doctors appointment Neil heard the cardinal.  He went sneakily outside with the camera.  At first he only saw the female cardinal but as he looked around he saw the bright red, beautiful cardinal that I have been trying to get a picture of.  He took a couple of pictures of the cardinal up in the tree by where we park the van.  I was so excited that he got such a good picture of my favorite cardinal.  This cardinal is such a beautiful, bright red.  I always want to be able to remember our Virginia cardinal when we are back in Wyoming.  I saw the cardinal out the kitchen window later the same day, but still couldn't get  a picture.  He definitely doesn't like to stay still for long.
Here is Neil's picture:

A catch up post on Emily's visit

Julia really wanted to have Emily Clark come out and see her while we are here.  Emily flew out the first week of March and spent about a week.  It was lots of fun to have her here.  We took her to do Baptisms at the Washington DC temple, Lexington, and to see some of the museums at Washington DC.  It was  a fun week.  Emily's mission call came just about 7 hours after she left to come to Virginia.  I felt bad that her family had to wait a whole week to find out where she was going.  She thought it was kind of funny.  Here are the pictures of Emily's visit:

I am so glad for the innocence of childhood

The other day it was snowing.  Emma had walked down the hill to the library.  I looked out the window just as she was getting home and this is what I saw..

I grabbed the camera to catch the innocence of childhood on film.  I am so glad she still feels like she can catch the snowflakes on her tongue and doesn't worry about what someone might think about her doing it.  It is so great to have that Emma smile back!  She is so much happier now that she feels better and her arthritis isn't causing her to hurt all the time.  I am so grateful to be a mother!

Springtime Soccer

Matthew played soccer in first grade.  I don't think he has played in all the years since then.  The boys that he ran cross country with in the fall all play soccer instead of running track.  They talked him into playing with them.  He definitely hasn't loved it, but he has been a good sport about trying to figure out the sport.  The first scrimmage of the season we won 4-0.  Matthew got a lot of playing time and he felt pretty good about the match.

We were very excited for him when he got to start on defense against Rockbridge County High School.  The match didn't go very well and Parry McCluer got beat 9-0.  The next week he started again when the team played against Stuart Hall.  We  got beat 8-0.

Matthew may not love soccer, but I love watching him play.  I am proud of him for doing his best to learn a new sport and be a good team player.  I think it is great that the boys from cross country encouraged him to give it a try with them.

Go Blues!! Go #19

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss and Saint Patrick's Day

We decided it would be fun to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday with green eggs and ham for dinner.  The kids really like ham and cheese pockets and we made green eggs to go with them.  We really didn't have green ham because that would be kind of gross.  We had these again for dinner for St. Patrick's Day.  We didn't do much of anything else to celebrate.  I guess we aren't very Irish.

First lost tooth

Lydia has been anxiously awaiting her first loose tooth ever since Josh started losing teeth.  She would come to me often and ask me to wiggle her loose tooth.  I would give a little wiggle and tell her it wasn't very loose.  I didn't think it was loose at all.  On Friday she was eating a ham and cheese pocket after the kids came home from school.  Emma told me that Lydia was getting blood on her food.  I wondered what was up with that and looked in her mouth.  I was totally surprised to see that she had lost her front tooth.  It took us awhile to find her tooth.  We thought maybe she had swallowed it when she was eating.  She was so excited she called Neil at his office to tell him about losing her tooth.  We had a ward dinner that night and she had fun telling her Primary leaders and teachers about losing her tooth.

She was really excited when the tooth fairy left her a dollar in her special box that Julia gave her to hold her tooth.

Here is a picture of her cute smile missing one tooth.