Cheerleader in the House!

Just wanted to quickly post that all last week Faith spent trying out for Freshman cheer and she just found out that she made it! We are so happy for her! And practice starts next week! GO FAITH!

World Vision's 30 Hour Famine

This past weekend, Faith participated in her second 30 hour famine. She raised money (and is still trying to raise some if she hasn't hit you up yet!) to feed starving children in Africa. Here's the stats...

26,000 children under 5 die each year from disease, poverty, and hunger.

That's one child every 3 seconds.

1 in 12 children die before their 5th birthday in developing countries.

So, Faith didn't eat from lunch on Friday until dinner on Saturday (she did drink Gatorade). She spent that time supervised at church with her youth group. They did a scavenger hunt to collect food for "Fill a Belly," a local soup kitchen she volunteers at and played many games to pass the time and take the edge off the hunger. She said she had a great time doing the famine, but that it was difficult because she was getting weak from not eating. World Vision's 20 hour famine is a great way for Faith to feel a part of something BIG and it's a way for her to have her voice heard.

I think it is great for her to feel (even if it is just a tiny fraction) what the children in Africa are feeling. Last year Faith raised $365, enough to feed 1 child for 1 year. This year she hopes to raise $720, enough to feed 2 children for 1 year each! I'm so proud of her.

What a day this has been and it's not over!

This morning Zach lost his shoes at the playground during my Bible study.

This afternoon at the grocery store Zach threw a major tantrum. First, he held his breath until he passed out. Then he cried and screamed and threw himself on the ground for everyone around me to see. He screamed for 20 minutes. I had a cart full of groceries and was sitting in the pharmacy area while Josh used the bathroom (or I would have left the store). I had one lady tell me that "crying is the worst sound in the world," another ask me if I needed help, another lady told me that I should take away one of his toys when we get home (like that would stop a 2 year old in the middle of a full blown tantrum), and everyone else just stared (some with that I know what you're going through look and some with that you must be a bad mom look). The Pharmacist even walked out to ask the name on my prescription so she could process it right away and get me out of there! I didn't have a prescription! Then when I finally got him to calm down we headed off to check out. We walked past the pharmacy and a lady in line (a customer, not a store employee) asked me if I knew that everyone in the store had to wear shoes while she looked down at Zach's bare feet. I just smiled and said "yup, I know," but I should have looked at Zach, then back at her, and said "he doesn't know how to read."

Easter

This Easter started out early! Faith and I went to the sunrise church service on the beach. What a wonderful way to celebrate what our Savior did for us. Following the service, there were water baptisms in the Pacific Ocean. Faith and I had a great time and she is thinking about being baptised.

When we returned home, the Easter bunny had hidden all the eggs and the kids Easter baskets. So, the 3 older kids set out in search for their baskets and found with much delight that the Easter bunny got them all BluRays. Faith got Twilight, Josh got Madagascar 2, and Zach got Walle. They all got a bunch of candy, even baby Ben got candy (the Easter bunny must have been looking out for mommy!) Then it was off to find the eggs.

Later in the day, all the family came for an Easter celebration. It was a lot of fun watching the kids hunt for eggs. I'm sure it takes the adults longer to hide them, than it takes the kids to find them.

a house is not a home

We spent two days cleaning our old house. We shampooed carpets, patched nail holes in the walls, cleaned windows, etc. I think we left the house cleaner than when we moved in! And out landlord must agree, because we got our entire deposit back!

While we were painting and cleaning the new house and packing and moving the old house, we made several trips a day between the two and the kids always wanted to know where we were going. So we would tell them either "the new house" or "home." Now, if Zach asks where we are going and we say home he gets very upset. When we say "home" we mean our new home, but Zach insists we call our new home our "house."

We've moved!!

We spent the week leading up to the big move packing, painting, and cleaning. So, we were really tired when the day came. Thankfully, we hired movers to move us! I'm sure we couldn't have done it on our own. The movers we had were crazy! They were both from New Jersey and one was Italian. Sean even asked him if he was in the mob! Every time he had to do something he didn't want to (such as move something very heavy or towards the end of our move, having to carry something upstairs) he would say "bada bing, bada boom" and do what he needed to do. I got to stand at the bottom of the stairs and tell them where everything went. And if we didn't know where something went, Sean wanted it moved upstairs because "it's easier to carry it downstairs than to carry it upstairs." We also decided that we didn't want anything in the garage, so everything was put inside. The good news is, we are in our house! Now if I could hire unpackers....