Brian & Marisa Neyenhuis Family

My wonderful Mother came to visit us for about a week around Easter. As always, we absolutely love having her here with us. And the kids really eat it up, too. While she was here, man, was I CHOPPED LIVER. Liesel would not have a thing to do with me: "No! Grandma! Grandma do it!" And after we drove Mom to the airport and they all said goodbye to her, Liesel comes up to me in the kitchen and says, "Actually.... I want Grandma. I want Grandma to come back." I said, "Yeah, me too. But she needed to go home. We'll see her again in a couple of months, though!"

Easter baskets! We usually hide them and play "hot and cold" until they find them.

I am so grateful that Cameron and Liesel are so very fond of Ivy. They are so sweet to her! 

Liesel playing with Ivy and making her laugh:

Easter dressy. 

Cute to the max!

We're all doing well! Brian and I decided that doing his post-doc at the University of Maryland would be the best for our family. We'll be leaving here in August sometime. We both feel good about going out there, and I'm both excited for a change (and hopefully a HOUSE to rent) and quite sad to be leaving my wonderful friends I've gotten close to here. Brian also recently got some great results on his experiment, which will hopefully help with the writing of his thesis. Cameron is doing great- he loves preschool, is still a chatterbox, still a climbing monkey, loves to draw, and he's taking gymnastics at the rec center which is going okay. He sometimes gets quite shy around new people, but usually warms up after a bit. Liesel is also doing well-- she is talking a lot more lately. She's still a snugglebug and a remarkably sensitive little girl. She always says "I love you" to all of us and "I'm sorry" even if someone's just sad, and "thank you" for her food or new clothes or whatever. She is just plain sweet. Ivy is also doing well. We did have evaluated for some development concerns, but I feel confident that's she doing fine. She's certainly is a happy baby, thankfully. And she's gotten better at sleeping at night, too! I'm keeping busy with finishing up my job as Resident Manager (this is my last week coming up!), the preschool, church, and mostly just taking care of the three littles. I've always had an impression that I need to spend less time on the computer--especially on facebook and other people's blogs, Pinterest and things like that. So I use a computer program called LeechBlock, which only allows me to look at facebook/Pinterest/blogs for 30 minutes for the week and only after 7:30pm (kids' bedtime). And I believe that was a very good thing for me. I just felt that I needed a sharper focus on the things that are most important in my life. It could be that impression came when I first heard this talk called Good, Better, Best, or this one where Julie Beck said, 

"A good woman knows that she does not have enough time, energy, or opportunity to take care of all of the people or do all of the worthy things her heart yearns to do. Life is not calm for most women, and each day seems to require the accomplishment of a million things, most of which are important. A good woman must constantly resist alluring and deceptive messages from many sources telling her that she is entitled to more time away from her responsibilities and that she deserves a life of greater ease and independence. But with personal revelation, she can prioritize correctly and navigate this life confidently."

This isn't to say that I think facebook/Pinterest/blogs are bad. I just felt that it was taking up too much room in my head. All of us get out of balance. I'm just thankful for that impression to change a little thing in my life so that I could re-balance and refocus on the best things in my life.