When Life Gives You a Lemon . . . Make It Into a Lemon Phone!

A few days ago, I took Gwen with me to the grocery store. In the fruit aisle, we noticed this GIANT lemon just sitting there in the lemon bin. I said, "Gwen, hold this up to your face so I can take a picture to show how big it is!"

While she might seem a little concerned at first, it very quickly turned into a lemon phone that she would answer every couple minutes while we were in the store. 

Cute video of her on the lemon phone: (25 seconds)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SCsxmb2MiyiLjojKA

And then by the time we drove home, it was her new BFF. :)

Early in the week, I got to talk to Kylie in Italy. Apparently, my son Benson doesn't love me enough to answer when I call . . . LOL (But seriously . . .)

She was in bed when I called, but we had a good chat anyway because she's such a good sport! :)

Maybelle says Meow and Purrrrr.

We talked about how the weather is getting warmer over there and how lucky they are, we talked about possible travel plans for this year, and we talked about family and relationships. It was a good chat as usual. Benson is working some crazy hours lately, like in the middle of the night! I don't know why they change up the schedule so often over there. I just miss them so much! But I pray for them every single day and can't wait until we can get to see them sometime this year. 

Amber and girls and I had fun shopping for baby clothes this week, too. We wanted to help Jacob and Hannah out, since they said that they haven't received much from their baby registry and didn't have any newborn clothes at all yet. We went to Once Upon A Child, a local store with gently used baby clothes. We got 17 pairs of pants, 22 onesies, 9 pajamas, 5 shorts outfits (for Washington DC this summer), 1 pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, 1 extra pair of shorts, and 3 shirts. ALL FOR $140!! What a steal!!

We brought them home, took all the tags off, washed everything, and then packaged it all up to ship down to Provo. (along with a beautiful coloring page from Abby)

I decided it would be best to send it in a box right away so that Hannah could sort through and know that they would have some clothes for their baby. In the last few weeks of pregnancy, moms seem to go through a nesting phase where they need to have everything washed, organized and ready to go. And by the time Scott and I go down to see them in 2 weeks, it will be really close to her due date and I just didn't want them stressing and worrying. They were very pleased with the package and all the cute little outfits!! Jacob said, "Now our baby won't have to be naked."

They are hoping that Hannah will be a good candidate (medically speaking) to be induced a few days early. She is due on April 5th, but they're hoping to get a jump start on April 2nd. The following week, the middle school where she does her student teaching will be on spring break. That means that she won't miss any days of work that she would have to make up. But I'm thinking - she should get a 6 week maternity leave anyway! I know it's trickier when you're a college student to work such things out, but I want the school to be lenient with her! We're praying that everything will work out in the best way possible. 

Here is a cute photo of all 5 of us together, wishing our friend's daughter a Happy Birthday. The Garner's daughter, Hannah, is serving a mission down in Brazil. Andrea Garner asked us to send her a photo of us wishing Hannah happy birthday and then she would take care of all the photos from there. 

And for our young women's activity this week, our back yard neighbor, Helma Blatter, came over to teach the girls how to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. They loved it! 

She had some dough already made ahead of time, and then she showed them how to roll it out into a big rectangle. 

Then they spread melted butter all over it, added some brown sugar and a cinnamon/sugar mixture on top of that. Next, she demonstrated how to roll it up, and cut it into circles. This is Helma's granddaughter, Mercedes next to her. :)

After the rolls had time to rise and bake, the last step was spreading icing all over them. Each girl was able to take home enough rolls to share with her entire family! And they were nice and warm and gooey too. 

Mid-week, I took the car into Les Schwab Tire Center to have them check my rear brakes. They were making a weird grinding sound that I've never heard before, and I wondered if it was just a piece of gravel or grit caught in the brakes somehow. Nope. It was the brakes themselves. They totally needed to be replaced! Les Schwab offered to replace the rear brakes for $562 . . . ORRRR . . . Scott could just replace them himself for about $30. Hmmm, what to do. What to do . . .

I tell you, this guy is irreplaceable. 

The weather warmed up to the mid and upper 40s late in the week finally. What a treat! We took the girls on a walk in their new red wagon to run a couple of nearby errands. We even took them inside Hobby Lobby in the wagon. Lots of people commented, "Now THAT'S the way to do it!"

After Hobby Lobby, we stopped in Wendy's to pick up some dinner for them, which they happily munched the rest of the way home. 

Our niece, Ashley Whitten, always makes me laugh with her cute posts on Instagram. This was one that she shared this week. 

I attempted to finish another baby blanket on Friday, but my old-and-needs-to-be-retired-sewing-machine decided to be ridiculous and uncooperative. 

Instead of continuously doing a nice zig-zag stitch like this . . .

It became slightly bipolar and started doing this instead . . .

I gave up after several attempts to correct the issue. And since I wasn't really finding anything in the fridge that I wanted to eat for dinner, I ate some chocolate ice cream with strawberries and cool whip instead. It seemed to help.

Meanwhile, after several failed attempts of his own, Scott decided to take a vacuum to the bobbin area of my sewing machine to clean it out a little. All this minky fabric does leave quite a bit of fluff and lint around! It worked! He fixed my machine!! I was able to finish the baby blanket on Saturday. Very satisfying!!

Also on Saturday, I took part in a leadership training breakfast with the new class presidencies in our young women's group. My assignments were to make the main dish: breakfast casserole, and to give instruction to the girls serving as a counselor in their presidency. It turned out really well and the girls were happy to be there. 

For dinner that same day, we traveled up to Rigby to eat with Scott's parents. Amber wasn't feeling well, so Scott and I took the girls and headed up minus their mother. Grandma Coy made a feast with crepes and all the possible toppings/fillings you could ever want! For savory crepes, she had: ham, chicken, bacon, sausage, multiple cheeses as well as a homemade cheese sauce, bell peppers (red & green), chopped zucchini, caramelized onions, and cilantro. For sweet crepes, she had: bananas, blueberries, pineapple tidbits, strawberries, chocolate sauce, chocolate chips, powdered sugar, pistachio pudding, cool whip, and cinnamon/sugar. 

It took some convincing to get the girls to eat some meats and veggies, but they did it. They had about 5 crepes each, with lots of strawberries on the side. 

Gwen kept climbing up into Grandpa's lap to snuggle multiple times throughout the evening. It was so sweet!!

And before we left, Abby and Grandma Coy helped make a crepe face for us to take home to Amber. 

Amber also received a loaded savory crepe that I put together. Her tummy and her heart were very thankful for such good food upon our return! :)

We are lucky to have family members nearby to visit and spend time with. Sometimes life gets busy and therefore in the way, but we fight to keep the relationships strong and meaningful. We are blessed to have Scott's parents here with us. They are such good and kind parents! 

Tomorrow is supposed to be the warmest day we've had since last fall. I think I will be brave and venture outside to prune some fruit trees before they start budding out soon!! Happy soon-to-be-Spring Everyone.