For Sarah

I promised my dear friend Sarah S. that I would post something today.  (She was threatening to send nasty emails if I didn’t and if you know Sarah you know those are pretty fierce words from one of the nicest people I know.)  So for Sarah, and for all of you that haven’t given up on us, here’s a quick summary of the past few months.

Hiked Enchanted Rock with some of the young women from church.  These girls had all completed a special challenge to earn the hike and we had a wonderful time.

At the top

 

Went to Utah for Thanksgiving.  Where we seem to have had such a great time we forgot to take any pictures.  But we played with both our families and even had all the Dunns gathered together for a big family reunion.  Let’s just say it was a full house, lots and lots of fun, and we wish we could see them all more.

For my birthday I came down with the nastiest flu I’d ever had.  Three days later it hit the rest of the family.  Luckily I was up and crawling at that point.  Fevers of 104 plus, nausea, body aches, and it left us exhausted for 2 weeks.

Poor, poor Lizzie resting and trying to keep the fever under control.

Henry and Lizzie spent a lot of time on this couch watching Blue’s Clues, while Dell and I lay in our bed watching “Lie to Me” and “In Plain Sight” on the laptop.  We all got caught up on our tv watching and Lizzie who had never really been exposed to the magical thing now hops around the house singing “think, think, thiiiinnnk.”  And sings blue’s clues whenever she sit in our giant, overstuffed “thinking chair.”  It’s pretty cute.

 

Christmas

We were almost feeling human, but Henry was excited enough about it that he feel down the stairs on his way down Christmas morning.

Top of the stairs

Bottom

But no injures and nothing but excitement when he saw this.

It was a great Christmas.  We took things slow.  Rested and just enjoyed being together.  And let me just say Texas is the perfect place to get a bike for Christmas.  We were able to go out and ride about in perfect 70 degree weather.  (Lizzie got the blue y-bike)

Lizzie Christmas eve with the puppy her brother got her.

Lizzie and one of her favorite presents.  (Thanks grandma!)  Baby goes with us almost everwhere and it’s so fun to see Lizzie being a little mother.  She does tend to whack people with her baby and I’m pretty sure she didn’t learn that from me, but other than that baby is well cared for.

Henry got legos galore.  (See the smile.  Mine was pretty big too.  We love legos Henry and I.) 

And all in all it was a great Christmas.

 

After Christmas Dell took the kids to the zoo one morning when it first opened and discovered that being the first one in the bird feeding place means you get to hold a lot of birds.

henry was nervous at first

but soon got the hang of it

Lizzie just stood at a distance and watched.

So that’s pretty much what we’ve been up.  None picture things include:

Dell’s hard work in residency was punished by being made one of the chiefs (duties so far: assembling the call schedule.  Lots of time staring at little excel spaces and dealing with other peoples problems.) 

Me being called to be YW president for our ward which brings me lots of happiness because I love, LOVE working with the young women.  But has also caused me to stop sleeping well because hey, we’ve got 34 young women and 8 adults and there’s just been a lot to co-ordinate (and worry over.)  But I think I’m getting the hang of it all and will soon return to the relaxed Sister Dunn the girls are used to.  It helps that the ladies that work with me are amazing.  Amazing.  I’m learning a lot, hopefully growing too, and just hoping that I can help the girls see how wonderful and loved they are.  Because they are.

Henry now has a bunkbed instead of a mattress on the floor.  Yay!  Now his room looks like his parents love him too.  (It was always a little embarrassing when giving tours to go from Lizzie’s painted, decorated, oh so cute nursery to Henry’s mattress on the floor, random stickers on the wall hodgepodge.  But with the addition of the bed great strides has been made for sibling equality.)  He’s also doing great in kindergarten and reading really well.  Every day the school sends a book for him to read to me and book for me to read to him home in a little blue bag.  It’s so much fun and he amazes me with the words he can sight read.  I’m so excited for him to feel like a reader.  Books are such a wonderful way to explore the world.

Lizzie sings and dances constantly.  She also insists on helping with everything.  Tonight after dinner she did a great job scrubbing the pots.  Cinderlizzie is really beefing up her resume.  She also has opinions on everything.  Especially clothes.  I start to fear the day she can dress herself because an editing eye is really needed with some of the combinations she pulls out in the morning.  She is also sweet giving hugs and kisses with abandon.  But then, Henry does too.  I’m so lucky to have such great kids to be with.  Today we went out to the green space across the street.  It has a little circular path in it.  Henry rode the y-bike and Lizzie happily chased him.  They could have done that for half an hour.  I love watching them play together.

So Sarah, there’s your update.  And I promise to not let so long go between posts again.  If I do forget for a while feel free to send a nasty email my way and I promise to get something up right away.