Feeding ducks

Believe it or not, Morgan reached the age of 3 1/2 before he ever had the experience of feeding ducks. It was high time we introduced him to it's joys.
Last weekend we went to Springville to visit Aaron's grandparents. Near their home is a little river and pond that is often filled with ducks and geese. So, upon leaving their home we took a few pieces of bread with us and stopped to feed the fowl.
There were a lot of other people there with the same idea, so the ducks were perhaps not as hungry as they could have been. But we attracted a little gathering and threw the bread chunks in the water.

Morgan made me a bit nervous though. He would go right to the very edge of the water and then launch the bread crumb in, which put him off balance. I was just sure he was going to launch himself in sometimes. I kept pulling him farther from the edge.
One of the other families brought a very excited little dog with them. And they didn't have a leash. You know what? I'll just say it. I'm not a dog person. I especially dislike the little dogs. I especially dislike the little dogs that run up to my little boy and make him all nervous so that he has to back away from it in fright right up to the very edge of the water. If I didn't intervene I am sure that Morgan would have ended up swimming with the ducks because the dumb dog kept pushing him back.

Anyway...all in all the feeding duck experience was a good one and I'm sure Morgan would like to repeat it.

Easter Wreath

First of all, hey look at me! A post three days in a row! That used to be normal...

Today I got on a preschool website to print a page of the letter D for Morgan to trace. While there I noticed a tab that said Easter. I checked it out, and looked at all of the Easter craft ideas and instructions that they had. I chose a craft that was cute and which we had the materials for, printed a template and we got to work.

Morgan colored the picture and I cut it out. While I did, Morgan had some paper scraps which he was happily cutting to shreds. We are barely figuring out to even hold them, so straight cut scraps is all he could handle.

He glued pieces of the rabbit together, (he's great with a glue stick) and I cut out strips of construction paper.

It's like he's sayin', "What, it's just glue. Give me a break."

Then we had a little two-person assembly line going. Morgan glued the end of a strip of paper and I curled it into a loop. When we had all our loops Morgan and I glued them to our previously cut ring of cardboard.

And we have our finished product. Kinda cute. Kind of fragile. The paper doesn't like to stay on.

We hung it on the door for everyone to see.

Of a writing, singing, rhyming little boy

Video time! Now, I know it's long, but I tried really hard to cut footage to get it even this short. He's just to cute and smart to cut!



By the way, the Easter bit, he says that the Easter Bunny is going to leave him Sally. The blue porche from Cars. He's quite sure of this fact, and I have no idea where he got the idea. But the thing is, we have been planning on getting him another Cars character. So he might just be right.

Morgan loved tracing his name. He's been asking to do it more this afternoon so I printed some letter sheets for him to trace and it makes him one happy boy.

On a different note, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and it feels like Spring. Inside. I admit, I only opened the door to get the mail once today, and that is the extent of my visit to the outdoors. But it looks Springy. Also, it's laundry day. While my regular pairs of pants were being washed I had to find something else to wear. My selection was a pair of capri's. Then I had to put on a bright yellow shirt to go with it, and I have been feeling great all day! I even did extra good at my daily chores.

I think I'll paint my toenails....

Playing Chess

Even though I visited family for close to a month, I managed only to take about 6 pictures. All in one sitting. These are they.

Morgan and his cousins Kaien and Emmy played chess in their own little way.

Then made funny faces for the camera.

Here we have the youngest of the cousins, baby Ammon.

When Morgan first met him, he had little interest. When Morgan second met him he still had little interest. But this time around Morgan loved Ammon. He would get close to his face and talk baby talk to him and ask him questions. I do think Morgan expected responses. He loved to pat him and play with him. It was very cute.

Funny alert. I just now asked Morgan, "Do you like Ammon?" His response, "Yeah! And I like Emmy and Kaien. And Kaien scares me too."

Side note: Morgan has since had a haircut. Phew!

More Morgan

Because I don't have a specific place to write down funny things Morgan says yet, I will put them up here again. Eventually I plan to get a little notebook deal and write them all in there, but they have to be somewhere else first. And this is it.

These are just from today.

I was playing a hymn on the piano, (We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet) and I hear Morgan excitedly say, "That's the brand-new baby song!" I chuckled and relayed the message to Aaron, and added, "That's kinda weird." Then Morgan pipes up from down the hall, "It's kinda not weird!"

Morgan found an oven mitt in the kitchen and tried it on, to his great delight. Then he said, "I'm just like Mommy!" I'm glad that's the light he sees me in...

Lately I've been trying to prompt Morgan to come up with things in his prayers that he is thankful for without my help. He's been doing pretty good. Last night he said, "I'm thankful for volleyball." That's my boy!

Special Delivery

Ever since Christmas Aaron has been anticipating a package in the mail. It was unclear when it would arrive, because the contents thereof needed slightly warmer than winter weather to ship safely. But last week he got an email notifying him that his package had shipped! He anxiously checked the mail until Monday, when it arrived.

Oh, he is so excited.

Inside the styrofoam was two little containers with a tiny bit of water in them, and something else.

Aaron did some preparation on a little "habitat", then dumped out the contents of the bottles into it.

And now we have two little tadpoles swimming around their habitat. They will grow into Leapord frogs.

This was a Christmas gift from Chanel to Aaron. He got the little terrarium and and a certificate to send in for the tadpoles. A perfect gift for Aaron.

Matters of the heart

The other day we were eating dinner. I'm not sure what the object of my love was but I said something to the affect of, "I love baked potatoes." And because we are weird at our house I said to Morgan, "But don't worry Morgan, I love you much more. If I had to choose between you and potatoes, I would always choose you."
Then Aaron said, "Would you choose Mommy or potatoes?"
Morgan quickly replied, "Potatoes."
Aaron said, "Oh, you're going to break your poor mommy's heart!"
To which Morgan coolly replied, "I like my own heart."

Tonight I was putting Morgan to bed and helped him with a prayer.
I prompted, "Please help..."
Morgan picked it up, "...me to find my heart."

It would appear that Morgan's had his heart on his mind a lot lately. I don't know where he comes up with this kind of stuff, but it cracks me up.

Will we stay or will we go now?

Crazy past month and a half. In the beginning of February my husband was called into a meeting at work where they told him that the government had cut the funding for his job. He had about two more weeks of work before he would be out of a job. So, naturally, the job hunt commenced. He had many interviews and was almost promised a job in Ogden, but because of a tiff the temp agency had with the company that wanted him, they weren't able to hire Aaron.
Then came Ancestry.com. Aaron had first, second and third interviews with them, and it was clear he was the favorite. An impending offer was sure. So we went searching for a place to live in Provo/Orem. Meanwhile, the house had been mostly packed.
Also meanwhile, the army post 0ut here was really missing having their web developer. They didn't have anyone to step in and take on any of Aaron's old responsibilities. But they didn't have enough to fund a full-time employee. However, the contracting company Aaron had been working for, Woodbury, decided they could also use a part time web type person for their own company. So they proposed to Aaron that he work half the time in Dugway and half the time for Woodbury in Layton, which would equal out to full time work. However, he would be able to tele-commute to Layton for a lot of it.
The offer from ancestry.com didn't come in as quickly as we had expected, and the house that we had picked out for ourselves was rented out. We did not expect it would be so hard to find a nice place to live close to the office in Provo and within our budget, but there is precious little to choose from. So yesterday we were stressing about that and looking all over ksl and craigslist for rentals and were much discouraged.
But it's all come to naught. It looks like the offer they are going to give Aaron is much lower than anticipated. It will be about $15K less a year than Woodbury is offering, so, well, we are staying. I had been looking forward to living somewhere else, but at least Aaron has a job again.
So now I have a house to unpack, which is ironic since we never went anywhere. What a waste!
A side note to this, Aaron got his "last" paycheck, which included all the money for his accumulated over-time. But now I just wish he still had that over-time because back in December we booked and paid for a Caribbean cruise for May. He will accumulate more by then, but it won't be enough. Oh well.
So that is just some of what has been happening with us in the last little while.

Does Spiderman have spider hands?

If you are my facebook friend, you might have already seen some, (or all) of these funny things from Morgan. But I want them documented better. So, without further ado, I give you the comic soundings of Morgan!

A week or so ago I was going to be leaving Morgan for a weekend. His grandparents and uncles were going to watch him. I was telling Morgan to be good and listen to his uncles while they babysat him. And he said, "And kick them in church?" What? How did you get that out of listen to them!

Morgan named his and Grandma Martin's hands. Grandma's spider hands are named Grandma and Mommy, and his spider hands are named Grandpa and Morgan. It sure did confuse me for awhile when I kept hearing him call Grandma, "Mommy". Oh, and apparently hands turn into spiders if you cage them.

Morgan said to my brother Cameron, "I don't laaaaak, I don't laaaa, I don't laaaak, I don't like Macaroni salad." He had the hardest time getting "like" right.

Somehow Morgan got it in his head that his *ahem* is called a tutu. That's just what he calls them. Where did he pick that up? Not just his, but everyone's.

The other day I was helping Morgan say his prayer. I told him to say he was thankful for his family, which he did, but he continued with it by saying, "And spiderman and superman, they're my family too."