Marguerite Magdalene

Maggie, the one-eye bandit.

I love first baths!

Loooove them!

She's almost smiling.

And she's dressed again.

She's healthy and beautiful and we are all enjoying her.

Leisure time

Today Steve was released from his calling as bishop of our ward. It has been 4 years and 2 months since he was called. The Stake was redoing the boundaries in Colorado Springs and they kind of combined our ward with another ward while chopping off a few pieces around the edges. The bishop of the other ward hasn't been in as long as Steve, plus with the possibility of us moving soon, they thought it would be best for the other bishop to take over.

Needless to say we are thrilled. We have gotten used to Steve serving and it really didn't feel like that big of a sacrifice most of the time, but we are looking forward to having him home more. It will also give him more time for the job search.

I have to say, that I am so grateful that I have a husband who is willing to serve the Lord, whatever he is asked to do. What a blessing. I see too many people in my ward who don't have that and it is easy to see how any sacrifice that our family made was worth having that kind of a husband and father.

I feel very blessed today in everything that I have today. The Lord is good.

Too Big for the Car

No, not me! I may feel like I'm too big to fit into a car, but in reality I'm not THAT big. But our family will be soon enough, so we bought a new car. New to us, that is. We now have an 8 passenger 2006 Toyota Sienna. It is boring gold color, but who cares, it's not a sports car or anything. Now we have a car that will fit our family when the baby is born.

Strangely enough, Francesca is most excited about the new car. She is constantly yelling about it when she sees it outside the window. Now we just have to sell the old one.

Here is a few pics of our cute Ches. As she won't be the baby for too much longer.

90 Days

Steve got his 90 Day notice yesterday. That means that his work will officially end on May 2, and then he has one month to try to find a job, etc. in which he is still an Intel employee. On June 2 his Intel employment will end unless he decides to forgo the separation package in order to try to find a job within Intel.

So, we are looking into jobs, and COBRAing insurance, and where we might move and stuff like that. All in all, I think Steve and I are both ready to do this just so our lives won’t be so up in the air, like they have been for the past 2 years. Unfortunately, the job market isn’t so good right now.

Evening things out.

We are expecting another girl. Her due date is May 24, 2009.

Last week, we went around the table and had all the kids guess whether they thought it would be a boy or a girl and they all thought it was a girl...so...apparently we all win. I love boys, but at this point I felt like a girl would fit into the family well.

We are probably done. (I told this to a lady in my ward and she said "Yea, right!" Thanks, lady.)

Pics

Steve and Levi and Cecelia plotting Pine Wood Derby car designs. Cecelia wants one too this year.

It's hard to get pics of Israel because he hide or makes faces. I have recently discovered that I can get pictures of him when he's reading, or in the middle of a Wii contest with someone.

Francesca just might end up being neat and tidy like Grandma Morgan. After she would get a piece of paper off of a present she would walk the paper into the kitchen and throw it in the garbage. It was cute, but took a long time, so we finally moved the garbage next to her in the living room.

All my kiddos. I do like them.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. We did...except for the crying.

Growing like a weed

So, Charity asked for a picture to see how big Elijah's getting. Unfortunately he's getting big. He wanted to measure again just the other day, obviously feeling the tightness of the race between us. So, here's the picture. I am standing on some Sandra Boyton books because he had boots on and I didn't want to give him an unfair advantage.

So, in other news, we have been attending concerts, and programs, and concerts, and programs...and pack meetings and ward parties. Luckily I think most of that stuff is done for the year. Now we just have Christmas to survive. A few days ago Cecelia said something about getting tons of presents, so I said to her. "You know, you're not getting tons of presents this year. You're getting some presents, but not tons." She immediately burst into tears.

So much for all those Christmas lessons on the real meaning of Christmas, and giving, and all that. So far it hasn't seemed to sink in.