Sick & Tired.

I'm thankful that we are over a wave of sickness. For whatever reason, Nathan and Ella both got flu-like sick and it took them over a week to shake it off. Nathan who never takes a nap, was actually taking naps. He is usually sweet and snuggly when sick-just wanting to rest and be by himself, and just, you know, rest. Ella on the other hand has the same sickness, but her body gets in a funk and simply can't rest. She spends much more time crying and simply needs more care (mainly in the form of head strokes and backrubs).

On this particular day, Nathan was taking a nap in our room and heard Matt come home from work. His spirit so badly wanted to see Daddy, but his poor body wasn't up to it. It broke my heart, but this is where he ended up. He slept this way for at least an additional 20 minutes...poor little guy. But, all are on the mend now and Addie (as well as Matt and I) were spared.

E.

I know I've mentioned Ella's quirkiness before...she's sort of our loose cannon, daily doing things that make you wonder what's going on in her sweet little head. This is one of the latest occurances.

One day, while Ella was going potty, I walked in to check on her, and she looked like this:

Shirt off, underwear over her head.

You know she was staring at the leg hole thinking, I bet my face is about that size:)

When I looked surprised and asked her what she was doing, I just got the look of "what mom, I'm going potty." It didn't occur to her that it may be odd.

Now she likes to do it from time to time for fun, like she's a super hero or something (Captain Underpants?)...but at least now she gets clean undies from the closet!

I Love to Tell the Story:

As a parent, my favorite thing in the world is to see my children respond to the Gospel and initiate heart-felt conversations about any myriad of topics about their faith. Almost a year ago, Nathan prayed to have Jesus come "live in his heart", and since he was just 1 has loved hearing the Bible read to him. Now he can read the Bible on his own (versions written for children, not KJV or anything)-and the other day even decided to read out of the hymnal. I don't remember which hymn it was, but I do remember him reading "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus..." Soak up the Word, my son! We are so blessed, and I pray that Matt and I will both help foster his love and knowledge of the Word and apply it to his life (right now, he's really good at applying it to other people's lives, like "she (Ella) needs to love her neighbor as herself"...but I guess we all are:)

Seeds to Sow.

Finally, Spring is here! I'm going to ignore the fact that there was "threat of frost" two nights ago, and we're moving forward...Tonight is the night for planting our garden! We were fortunate enough to be able to get a community garden in Sioux Falls, so we are now proud gardeners of 160 square feet of beautiful, manure-laced earth. My ultimate aspiration is to be fully sustained for our veggie needs throughout the summer, plus have excess to freeze/can for the fall and winter...but I'm trying to be realistic. Even if we only get a few meals, it will be worth it for the experience! Nathan especially has been excited and been doing lots of planning. Here is a list of things he wanted to plant:

(tomato, green beans, cucumber, carrots, peas, pumpkins, zuccini, potato, corn...the rest Iwrote because Nathan did not actually want to plant onion, garlic, peppers, or herbs. Also Addie got a hold of the list which is why there is some scribbling, and Nathan put "I heart" in front of some of the veggies:)

As a Mother's Day gift we went to Lowe's and Nathan and I picked out some seeds...I think we got some good ones!

In a week or two we'll go to a local greenhouse and get our tomatoes, peppers, and herbs and plant those (we're not completely ingnoring the frost threat!)

Blessed.

Top three reasons why I LOVE being a mother:

1.

2.

3.

AZ slideshow.

For Easter, we got the privelege of going to Arizona to visit Matt's mom and some extended family, a tradition we started when we got married, but has been on hyatus for 2 years. (Matt was unemployed therefore no extra money, then Matt had a new job, therefore no vacation time!) The weather was great and everyone had a wonderful time. I think we all would have gladly stayed much longer! I took about 250 pictures in Arizona, and finally wanted to share some of them! So, I made a slideshow on flickr, but can't seem to figure out how to widdle out some of the pictures...or even how to get the actual slide show to post here. So, hopefully this link will work, and you can click on the thumbnails on the bottom of the screen to bypass some of the photos...or if you have some free time, you can enjoy about 100+ photos of life with the Thompsons in AZ! (sorry for my lack of technology skills).

I'll post some highlights of Arizona later!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprilathompson/show/