greetings, y'all! we are doing well in our little corner of texas. Staying busy, and growing. (all except patrick :-). thought i'd share a few memorable moments of the past little while. patrick joined the church softball team, and has had 2 games so far. they are 1 for 2, but we won't see him play much. the fields are practically in our neighbourhood, but all after Hannah goes to bed. But we wish him luck! He said if we have all girls he can eventually have his own little cheerleading squad.

we went to the batting cages last night before his game, and it was late so i fed Hannah in the car. Some people might feel guilty if they make their child eat a hard boiled egg, carrots, whole wheat pasta, and grapes while they eat sonic. not me! because i'm fairly certain. . . .

that God has given me the most beautiful child He ever created. Biased? Of course not. She's become the bag lady. She likes to load up all of her stuff she can carry, even though she loses a trail as she goes, and walk around saying bye like she's going away. it's pretty funny.

poor girl, she's already getting it; the dreaded 'wow, she's so tall!'. I feel like saying, uh, yes, what did you expect. but she really is. she's taller than all the two year olds. so when you finally see her, comment on something else!

so we're on a potty kick. she doesn't actually use it, just likes to talk about it. she loves her potty books, and always says 'potty-potty' and pulls her pants down. so far we haven't had any serious messes yet!

last week, hannah helped me with a very exciting task: our first milk donation! someone right here in frisco, actually. these two bags will only last a few weeks, but it's a start!

chowin down on peas. she'll eat peas by the handful.

in my limited exploration of the blogger world, i've noticed most people that put up food/recipes tend to do things like millet pancakes, or kale and barley soup. the crisps here, on the other hand, like to do cinnamon sugar pretzels and cheeseburgers/sweet potato fries/coleslaw/chocolate milkshakes. now i ask: who's house would you rather come to for dinner? :-) (can you tell i'm pregnant?)

we'd been wanting to make pretzels for a while, and while not exactly like auntie anna's, they were pretty good. i do want to make another attempt though. those disappeared rather quickly. the cheeseburgers and milkshakes were amazing. patrick experimented with the coleslaw because we didn't have white vinegar. apparently apple cider vinegar can't be substituted!

As usual, we haven't taken pictures of everything going on. my trip to the dentist, for instance. always a blast. we had our first missions awareness meeting sunday. i had a great time decorating our little coffee shop room. patrick made our snacks, and we were uber-prepared - for the 3 people who showed up. :-) but that's ok, you have to start somewhere. next month it's central america. i'll have fun learning about there. also, i've started my little door to door advertising job. each month i put together bags of information, then take them to families who have recently relocated. i can work around my schedule, as long as i get it done by the end of the month, which is great. we have a busy few months with family that we're looking forward to. we're going to charlotte where hannah will meet some of my dad's family for the first time, in april. then mom and bob are coming here, and we are very excited! then we are going up to kansas for memorial day. brett and jes will be there too.

speaking of Kansas, I will close out today to ask you to pray for Grandma Jan (Des' mom). in the whirlwind of the past few weeks, we found out she has fairly advanced breast cancer. she's having a double masectomy as we speak. hopefully that will be the end of it, but there is the possibilty of chemo or radiation as well. she's pretty strong, we just wish we could be there with her right now. thank you for your thoughts and prayers.