Ha ha suckers!

I got this great idea to try and have a picture of B on his tummy with his legs curled up under him. We put him in these cute shorts that have a alligator on the bum. He was tired so I thought that he would fall asleep. I wanted to print the picture in black and white. I thought that having a curled up, sleeping, shirtless baby with an alligator on his bum would be such a cute picture. As we can all see, he wouldn't have it. When I laid him down and tried to curl his legs up under him, he just kicked them out. We tried for a long time, thankfully he's such a happy baby that there were no tears. But when I finally admitted defeat, we rolled him over, he crossed his own arms and started to smirk. He was very pleased with himself that he had won the picture battle.

Good morning!

I don't know what mornings are like at your house, but around these parts we just lay on the floor and stare at each other.

Pineapple progress

 Remember this picture? This is from Aug 2011. This was our pineapple that we planted for family home evening. Now, I in no way am a gardener. If I was given a row of something growing in a garden and told to weed it I would have no idea how to tell what green things coming from the ground were the crop and what was a weed. My dad can attest to this fact because when I was a younger lass he decided it would be good for us to help him weed. I was told to weed the flowers growing along the driveway. I went to my assigned location, saw a huge weed and started to pull. This weed was stuck tight! I pulled with all my might. By the time I finally got the stupid weed out of the ground, I was sweating like a fat man in a sauna. I was breathing heavy enough that my dad must have thought that I was having a heart attack. He turned from what he was weeding to see me holding the evil weed I had just wrestled out of the ground. I was really proud of myself until I noticed that my dad wasn't congratulating me on getting this weed that seemed to have been wrapped around the core of the earth. His face actually fell and he said with his famous sigh,"That was a rose bush." Oh dear, that's not great! Sorry dad! Clearly I am no gardener. Planting a pineapple didn't seem to help me learn either. Since we don't have a spot of land to grow a pineapple in the ground, I thought that using a five gallon bucket would work almost as good. It would have except that I didn't even think of how the excess water was going to leave the bucket. I wonder if I thought that the dirt would just eventually drink the water. I don't know what I was thinking, but needless to say our little pineapple didn't stand a chance. Thanks to all the excess water it received, it drowned pretty quick. Not to mention the little hands that on more than one occasion pulled the pineapple out of the dirt. When they came into the house holding it, I figured it hadn't been out of the dirt very long and I could probably just replant it. Just in case you were wondering, that doesn't work. The plant dies. Anyway, we had to say goodbye to our first pineapple.

I don't want you to think that we gave up all together. Oh no! We put our shoulder's to the wheel and pushed along! We planted another pineapple. When I told B that I really wanted to try again to plant a pineapple he told me that maybe we should put holes in the bottom of the bucket so the excess water has somewhere to go. I told him that I thought that was a brilliant idea. I'm pretty sure I told him that while he was at school I could try using a hammer and some nails to put holes in the bucket. He said that he could just use a drill. I looked at him and asked,"That won't crack the bottom of the bucket?" I feel so stupid for myself. What did I think taking a hammer and nails to a plastic bucket would do? I'm pretty sure my method would crack the bottom before B's method. Thankfully he's smart enough to know that drilling holes would work. We planted our second attempt in Jan of 2012. It takes a year and a half to grow a pineapple. We were getting nervous that our second attempt had either died from being shoved in a plastic bucket with no room for the roots, or been cooked to death since we live in a place that makes the surface of the sun seem chilly, or that it wouldn't grow by the time B is done with school(7 weeks to go!!!). But I am happy to report that we were wrong on all accounts!

How awesome is that?! Now I realize that it's still tiny. But, it's still growing! I get so happy every time I look at our pineapple that I feel like we should name it and make it an official part of our family! I don't know if it will be eat-able by the time we leave, but I'm just so so happy that it's growing and that I didn't kill it that I would be ok leaving it with a family in our ward that has five or six pineapple plants and avocado trees. Being able to grow a pineapple in a bucket has given me a renewed sense of having a green thumb. I can hardly wait to try growing something else like herbs that can sit on my kitchen window and don't have to be weeded!

Really?!

So as we all know, Monday was April Fool's day. I am not one to remember things of that nature. My mom was really good at that. We would always have hot dogs for breakfast and then would have breakfast for dinner. The thought of feeding our children hot dogs for breakfast makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Anyway, as I was driving to get M from school the radio was on. All I heard was that the management was apologizing for the April Fool's joke that the DJ's did that morning that got carried too far. Then another DJ came on laughing saying that the morning DJ's are crazy and that their April Fool's joke was just to be,"silly." She then went on the explain what the joke was. They had told all the listeners that there was H2O in the water.... I was waiting for her to get to the offensive part of the joke. But, she didn't. That was the joke. They told people there was H2O in the water and people got offended. What?! They said that a mom called in saying she had just filled her baby's bottle with tap water and wanted to know if anything was going to happen to her baby. People were so offended that on Tuesday morning the DJ's weren't at work because the management was deciding if they could keep their job's due to the April Fool's joke they played. Now, I in no way profess to be smart. I don't claim to know a whole lot. In fact I heard the word skosh for the first time in February and learned that it means a little. So I admit there are things that most people know that I don't, like the word skosh and how to use it. However, if someone told me that there was H2O in the water I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get my undies in a wad. I'm going out on a limb here, but if people are dumb enough to panic when they hear there is H2O in the water, there is no hope for the future of this country! Why, of all the things that are truly offensive, like bad language and body parts not being properly covered, do people get offended over something like H2O in their water. Heaven help this country with such bright people living in it! 

In other news, B's car died. We were really hoping that it would make it all the way through the program. It fought a good fight, but just couldn't last the last 2 1/2 months. We could have fixed it for $1000. But, B hadn't planned on taking it with us when we leave. So he decided not to fix it. When he told me the car had lost it's fight to live, I was fine. I was fine when he put it on Craigslist to sell it. As I read through the long list of things that needed to be fixed, I thought to myself,"Self, that's a long list of things that need to be fixed. I wonder if anyone will buy it." It sold in just over 12 hours and 8 of those hours were during the night. So really, it sold pretty fast. As we went to the parking lot where it had died and took off the license plates and signed over the title, I got a little sad. I told B that it was really sad that his car was no longer with us. As we drove away, I'm not gonna lie, I got a little misty eyed. I feel like a little part of our family has died. I am thankful that it lasted as long as it did and I hope the guy that bought it loves it as much as we did! 

Hopefully she is loved like no other 19 year old car has been loved before!