The Alot is Better Than You at Everything

I laughed so hard when I read this! I want an Alot... Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything

Lando Dreaming

Greyhounds are seriously the best dogs ever. We love our guy! Despite their reputations, greyhounds are total couch potatoes. He loves his walks and rides in the car, but he sleeps ALL the time. He sleeps with his eyes open sometimes, which is kind of freaky, and he also dreams. Sometimes it's quite hilarious (less so when it's at 3 in the morning). Here's one we caught on tape this afternoon:

Egg Dying

We dyed eggs on Saturday morning before the first session of conference (which we didn’t actually get to watch, but that’s another story…).  It’s a Jorgensen tradition to dye Easter eggs in your underwear, which is fine with Paul, since he would much rather be in his underwear than go through all the effort of putting on clothes.  This was Averi’s first year to dye eggs, and she definitely got into the spirit of things.  She cried every time it wasn’t her turn to drop an egg in, which is why you’ll see tears in almost every picture of her. Averi decided to taste the dye.  Vinegar—ewww! Decided to help herself because we’re too slow.     Looks like Flubber! And here’s the end result:     This photo was not planned at all!  Averi decided to yoink one of the eggs in the middle of my picture.

Lando’s home!

We picked up Lando this afternoon, and he's done fabulously. He's been very curious (he's a big boy, so I can tell counter surfing is going to be an issue) but not at all spooky. In fact, the only thing he spooked at was my camera strap! He's been perfect around the kids, with no tensing at all. He refuses to attempt the stairs, but we'll give him a while to get used to his new surroundings before we push that. He's such a love. In fact, my only complaint is that every time I tried to get a shot of his full face, he came walking over wanting to be pet. So I guess those face pictures will have to wait a while. To remind those non-Star Wars fanatics who Lando (Calrissian) actually is: And here’s our Lando in all his Roman-nosed glory:   You can get a sense of how big he is from this picture.  He’s not a tiny guy!  Especially when compared to Averi! I’ve got the training lead tied around my waist because he’s not housebroken, but we haven’t had any accidents yet.  He’s been very good about going outside. We have a mirrored table lamp in our living room, and he came across it while he was exploring. He saw the handsomest brindle boy in it and had to shower him with kisses. I now have to clean all the dog slobber off my lamp, but it was worth it to see him so in love with his reflection. Perhaps we should have called him Narcissus! We also went on a walk/jog, and he was great on the lead. It was obvious that he needs more exercise though; he was worn out long before I was ready to be done! We'll work up to that, though. Overall, he's perfect!

Easter Photo Shoot

I’m really not a big fan of Easter on General Conference weekends. I feel that everything is such a compromise. You can’t do all the Easter things you want to do, and you also miss out on many of the General Conference traditions. I may be sour because this Easter was a particular disaster. Nothing went according to my plans, and I never take it well when that happens. It also included being locked out of our house (with one barefoot child and a slew of grocery shopping to get done before Sunday) while Aaron was at priesthood session—thank goodness for friends that live close. But we survived, and if I thought it was a mess, I don’t think the kids noticed that anything was amiss. I forgot that there was no church on Easter Sunday, so I bought Easter dresses, and I didn’t have the heart to take them back because everyone looked so adorable. Averi was being a particular pill this weekend (it didn’t help that she was sleep-deprived and cutting four teeth), so pictures were a nightmare. I had to bribe her with chocolate, which we fortunately had in abundance. The results, however, weren’t fantastic. We also had to just plop down where ever Averi chose to sit. Which meant we have the sand-and-water table, dirt, and stucco as a lovely backdrop. Eventually Aaron decided to drop grass on my head while I was taking pictures. Distracting for me, but we soon got a smirk from Averi. It changed to a half-smile when Aaron started to put the grass in my ear. There’s a reason so many photos turned out slightly blurry. That was the best we got. Not too shabby. I can photoshop lovely fields into the background if I want. Then I got this photo: And I thought, “Hey, that’s kinda cute! Katie and Paul, why don’t you both kiss Averi on the cheek?” And this is what happened: And so we were done with the group photos. I got a lot of this: And some of this: (Poor Paul! Doesn’t he look frightened of the screaming banshee behind him?) Being bribed with more chocolate: Fortunately, Katie and Paul were much more agreeable about taking photos, despite the prima donna in the studio. Paul has this weird thing about being unable to look at the camera (he can’t look you in the eye when you’re scolding him, either). But I’ll take that any day over Miss Attitude. This is such a Paul face; I love it! This is what I did to keep my hands busy during the Sunday morning session of Conference: Isn’t my Katie just beautiful! I love that she’ll actually sit still to take photos for me. She LOVES being the center of attention!