Testimony

Today was Fast and Testimony meeting at church. After getting the butterflies in my stomach for 1/2 the meeting I decided to get up and thank Heavenly Father publicly for my many blessings. As I was waiting my turn, Pantera comes walking up and tells me she wants to give her testimony as well. She went first and got a little nervous when she saw so many people. She turned around to me and asked what to say, I told her to say what she felt. She gave a beautiful testimony of the Savior and His atonement. She even used the word atonement, she is way beyond her years in some ways. I hope she always has such a great testimony of the Lord I am so proud of her.

We have had a really rough week with her I have some great and horrible stories, stay tuned!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Zeke!

I can't believe he is already 6 months old! I love this little guy so much! He has filled the void that we felt in our family and I am so grateful for the blessing that he is in our lives. He is always so happy, even through teething on top of ear infections! It is so easy to make him smile and laugh. He has been waking me up by slapping my face in the mornings, he thinks it is so funny. Then he smiles and tries to sit up to see if his sister is awake, he makes each of us feel so special. I am such a lucky mom!

Pantera stories...

Zeke is smiling because his first tooth FINALLY popped through!!!

Yes that is a Bible on her head.

As promised here are some great tales from the Hammond home.

Pantera LOVES the movie Spirit. I think she is the only one. For those of you who are not familiar with this classic kids film it is about a horse named Spirit who runs around to Bryan Adams songs for 2 hours...BORING!!! In the movie they refer to Spirit as a mustang. Pantera was on the trampoline playing Spirit and she starts yelling "Let's get that mustache!" Then she told me she thought it was funny that they call horses mustaches because "horses can't even grow one, that's weird!"

Last week she found a picture of my sister and I when we were little. I was in a dress and Meredith was in a sweatsuit. Pantera says "Ugh, she looks like a man!" She wanted to call Meredith and give her a complex, so being the great younger sister that I am I let her.

We were grocery shopping on Friday and when we passed the pet aisle Pantera shouts "We need to get some dog food so Daddy has some breakfast!" She loves her dad. He was out of town most of last week and she missed him. She told me "I wish Dad would get fired." I asked her why and her answer "So he could stay home with me all day!" If only it worked like that.

She went outside on Saturday morning while it was still pretty chilly. She came back in an informed me "It's an hundred disease out there, it's so cold!"

I cheated!

Easter is like Christmas for me. I LOVE IT!!! I go crazy over dresses for Tera every year and do her hair like prom. I didn't think I would get into it as much with a little boy, but holy smokes he is so fun to dress up!!! He looked so cute that I couldn't help putting him in his Easter outfit for church today. I can't wait for Easter!!! I will post some funny Tera stories tomorrow.

Trampoline

It was finally warm enough yesterday for shortsleeves!!! I love to see his chubby arms and legs!

Pantera has been enjoying jumping on her new trampoline. It is a blast for her, but I don't know how long it will last with the attitude she has had about it. If I tell her it's time to stop jumping she gets really upset and she even told me "This is the worst day of my life!" The biggest drawback is all the "wild kids" in our neighborhood wanting to come jump too. I have to be a grouch and tell them no, I feel bad but not bad enough to give in.

She has been getting the words upset and obsessed mixed up lately, so she says things like "I'm upset with Mulan!" It is great.

All the grandkids call my mom "Pizza Grandma" and my dad "Papa with the dogs." The other day in the car Pantera was laughing and apparantly just noticed that "her name has pizza in it!" She then told me "how about we just call her pizza, he,he! Don't tell 'k mom! And how about we call Papa with the dogs, Beardie!" She thought this was so funny and so do I, so from now on my Dad is to be called Beardie.

Dad has the moves!!!

Meredith taught me how to make these pictures and I LOVE the way they turned out! They are all 8x10 on canvas. I may never pay a portrait studio again!

This week was kind of a blur! We have been pretty busy now that I look back on it! Pantera has been her usual crazy self. A little boy named Mark moved into the house that her friends Lexi and Skyla used to live in, so she still has a friend in the area (thank goodness!). This has helped her with missing Lexi and Skyla, although she did take time to pay the girls her final respects and erase them from her Wii because "they are never coming back." Maybe I will erase Shawna from my facebook;) Today after church she asked me "Do you know who baptized Jesus?" I said that I think I know, she excitedly informed me that it was "John the Baptism."

Zeke is sick, AGAIN! I am so over this! Now he gets to go to a ENT, maybe they will know what the heck is going on with him since our sorry excuse for a doctor out here doesn't seem to care about anything but getting my copays! We have been in every 2 to 3 weeks, I feel so bad for him! On a happy note, he loves to watch the relief society choruster conduct the music and tries to get her attention the entire song. Everytime she looks up at him he gets the biggest grin on his face! Such a ham.

It's official!

Our little family is getting sealed on April 25th in Washington D.C.!!! I am so excited!!!

Happy 100th post!!!

This picture made me think of Ed Grimely.

Zeke is so funny. He loves his walkabout when it is next to the computer. He plays for a while then looks at the desktop background of Pantera, smiles, then plays some more. He will do this over and over again if she is in bed. Any picture of her gets him smiling and if you make the Pantera picture talk he cracks up!

Pantera is finally using the Barbie bike she worked so hard for. She rode over a mile on Saturday!

Both shirts were provided by Caleb and Marie, btw.

Pantera has been telling everyone that she meets "I run faster than a slow horse!" She gets upset when they laugh at her and then says "I'm serious." She has been making up more pretend classmates for her pretend school where she calls me Mrs. Hammond. You see, during school I am not her mother so she treats me with respect and listens to what I say. Then when the pretend bell rings, she walks out of the pretend door and I morph back into mom, giving her the right to pout and whine and cry again. It is all about balance...anyways one of her pretend classmates was named "Beefy" today. I was not allowed to laugh when I addressed Beefy, so I waited until after class and she got mad. I'm pretty sure I got pretend jumped for it.

Zeke is so cool!

I posted on the 27th of February about Zeke having no desire to roll over. I failed to mention in my last post that later in the evening of February 27th, Zeke rolled over twice. Kids just have to make you look dumb. So yay to a milestone, and here is another, his first birdie:)

He is feeling much better, btw.

Were's did Pantera go?

Pantera was feeding Ezekiel the other night, he thought it was WONDERFUL!!! Unfortunately he gets so excited that she is looking at him that he spits all over and grosses her out.

Zeke this morning in the typical male fashion...ok he's missing the hands down the pants, it will come...

I love the $1 kids crafts at Michael's! This is the panda bear we made for "school" this morning. Everyday Pantera has been pushing me to play school with her. We practice writing, do projects, and her favorite flashcards. She is really trying to read and doing a pretty good job of sounding words out when she wants to. She is going to be so bored by the time she gets to go to Kindergarten. Luckily during the hours of 9 and noon she wont be my problem...mwahahahaha!!!

Pantera disappeared before church on Sunday!!! This is what our bedroom floor looks like every Saturday night. She has to lay out what she is wearing to church the next day, the way she would put it on her body. I only took the picture because she added the scriptures this time and it cracked me up!

Poor Zeke can't seem to get better. He is on his 3rd round of antibiotics in the last month or so. I took him back into the doctor yesterday because he had some pretty bad diarrhea and I was worried about him getting dehydrated. The doctor looked at him and almost seemed to question my bringing him because he was so smiley and happy with her. I tried explaining that this is miserable, for him, he is just a happy kid! I love that about him and it breaks my heart to know he doesn't feel well. The doctor had me give him pedialyte only he wouldn't take it from me. If I give him a bottle he gets a disgusted look on his face and spits out whatever I am trying to feed him. Then Jess came home, he got him to drink it in about 2 minutes...whatever.

I finally got my Wii fit!!! It is a blast, I LOVE it!!! It's crazy in the 2 days that I have been using it my legs are already starting to resemble steel tree-trunks! I would post a picture, but I don't want to make anyone else feel bad about the size of their puny stick legs (mainly meredith).