Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: This week was pretty low key. We went grocery shopping, there were piano lessons, music play time, etc. We also got the windshield repaired from when a rock dropped out of the back of a trailer in front of us on the highway. Luckily they were able to repair it and didn’t need to replace it (it doesn’t cost us anything out-of-pocket for repairs, just replacement). Saturday was a big day because Paul finished off the garden plot and we went to our ward luau. The luau was a lot of fun. The food was great, the entertainment even better (a lip sync by the bishopric, hula dancing by the Relief Society and Young Women, and a stomping dance by the Young Men), and then we went outside for games, snow cones, and a dunk tank. Joseph was really upset when we had to leave. He would not be comforted for anything. Finally, Paul pulled out his phone and started playing “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” on his phone. It reads the book and shows the pictures from the book. That seemed to calm him down right away. Isn’t distraction great? 🙂

The Weekly Weather: We had a monstrous thunderstorm with quite a bit of rain (though no hail or tornadoes as was predicted…it is very rare for a tornado to actually happen here) on Monday night. The rest of the week was gorgeous…warmish, breezy, and beautiful. 🙂

What Paul’s Been Up To: Work is still great for Paul. Mostly I want to talk about all the hard work he did on Saturday. For a couple of weeks now, he’s been working to clear a space to plant our tomatoes. It’s been difficult since it seems like we have just a couple of inches of topsoil and then a bunch of clay. So once he got the grass up, he mixed in a lot of dirt, fertilizer, and compost (we have our own compost) with the clay to get a better quality soil to plant the tomatoes in. Then he made a border to keep the grass from creeping back in, laid down cardboard and newspaper as a weed barrier, planted the tomatoes, and then spread cedar chips down to cover it all. It looks so great!!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve mostly been just plugging away at my piano teaching and keeping Joseph well entertained. Today was my first practice as choir director, and I think it went pretty well. We have a really awesome choir. 🙂

What Joseph’s Been Up To: Joseph has figured out how to lock our doors that have the doorknob lock (he uses his play keys to turn the slot) from the outside, so I find random rooms in the house locked with nobody inside. Now I triple check the house at night to make sure that doors that shouldn’t be locked, aren’t, and that doors that should be locked, are (since he’s figured out how to unlock some of our doors). He also plays a game that he calls, “Where’d it go?” He rolls a ball away, asks me where it went (“Where’d it go?!”), and then proceeds to find it for me. He also will hide his face and then ask me, “Where’s Joseph?”. Another fun thing was seeing him discover that corn on the cob is hidden until the husk is removed. He thought it was pretty cool to watch me shuck some the other day. He’s also been practicing giving me dark, mean looks and then big smiles when I laugh at the mean look on his face. Oh, and he has been taking his lovey monkey (the mini blanket with a monkey head) into his confidence: telling it secrets, tattling to it when I do something he doesn’t like. He has become rather possessive of his parents as of late. While at church today, the baby that was in the pew behind us tapped on Paul’s back and Joseph said, “No touch! No touch my daddy!” We assured him that it was okay, while trying not to laugh. Finally, he has discovered peel bugs…only he calls them “roller pollies”.

This Week in Pictures:

Chowing down at the luau.

Weekly Happenings: Monday was Cinco de Mayo, so we ended up going out to get some Mexican food. We went to a fast food place called Taco Cabana. It was SO yummy! We then went and voted (since we’re having a special election for school bonds and other stuff) and then stopped by The Children’s Place to get Joseph some new sunglasses (which he LOVES). Friday was Paul’s work picnic. Even though it was rather muggy out (typical May day in Texas), we still had a good time. Paul took us all around the grounds of his work so that we could see the different buildings that students are taught in, use as resources, etc. We also had a squirrel-seeking adventure (Joseph was really into all the squirrels that are at Paul’s work). Yesterday we had a really good time at the zoo, but on the way home, we were behind a guy that had a trailer without a tailgate on it. We didn’t realize until it was too late that there were several rocks in the back of his trailer…one of them flew off and hit our windshield pretty bad. We’re hoping the glass company can just repair the windshield and not have to replace the entire thing, but we’ll see. 🙁

The Weekly Weather: It’s been warm and muggy, and we had a CRAZY thunderstorm on Friday (right as Joseph and I were getting home from the picnic). Since they had been predicting them, I had a plan in place already on how I would cover my flowers in the front and where I would put the tomatoes since they aren’t planted yet. I was able to take care of all the plants before the storm got too bad (which was a miracle, because thunderstorms in Texas seem to just come literally crashing in).

What Paul’s Been Up To: Paul’s continuing to do good at work. His boss was telling me about how much they rely on him to help out with the technical aspects of the job and how he’s really good at that stuff. He received two awards for doing so well. One is a 24-hours off and the other is a bonus. We’re hoping to put the money from his bonus into getting a water softener for the house (unless we need a new windshield :/). He also spoiled me for Mother’s Day once again. My official present was a new bag that I can use for a myriad of things (such as church, but it works out well for carting along things to the zoo or any other place we might go), but he also made me breakfast and dinner today. It was really nice. 🙂

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve had a sort of “out of the frying pan and into the fire” moment. When I was called to be the visiting teaching coordinator for our ward, I realized it was going to be a bit too much to keep my calling as Primary pianist (since both have things that need to be done at the same time at church), so after talking to the bishop, we agreed that when they found someone else who could play, they would release me. Well, they released me from Primary just to call me to be ward choir director! I’m a bit overwhelmed, but seeing as the two callings don’t have a time overlap and also taking into consideration that I have several good contacts in the ward that I can get music from, if I just take a breath and tackle it one day/task at a time, I should be good.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He has been especially attached to Momma as of late. If I need to go somewhere without him, he is super sad, even if he’s got Daddy. I’m sure it’s just a phase that he’s going through, since he hasn’t always been like this, but man, it’s kind of tiring! Oh, and every time I say that we are going somewhere, he says that we’re going to the “sta-de-dah”. Paul and I have yet to figure out if that means a particular place or if it’s just his word for going out. One of these days we’ll figure it out, and then we’ll have a celebration! Finally, he’s been singing a lot more recently. He’ll make up songs, sing snatches of songs that he knows (like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider”), and sing along to the radio if it’s a song he’s heard a lot (he knows most of the words to the chorus of “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker). 🙂

This Week in Pictures:

Bonus Video: Recently, Joseph has been experimenting with the pedals that fold out of his scoot-along bike. He normally prefers them in since he can scoot faster than pedal, but lately he has requested having the pedals out. Here’s a video of his progress (before I started recording, he had made it all the way around the dining room table).

Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty average. We went to the park quite a few times since the weather is better for it (plus we need to enjoy it before it gets too hot). Joseph thoroughly enjoyed music playtime, and we enjoyed a night with friends over to play games.

The Weekly Weather: The beginning of the week was nice and mild, and then it started to warm up toward the end of the week. Not too bad for the first part of May. What I like is that it takes a while for us to reach the projected high temperature (sometimes that doesn’t happen until four or five in the evening), so we can still do outside stuff in the morning. The down side to that is that it makes it hard to do stuff in the evening. It also doesn’t really cool down in the evenings too much. It’s kind of hard to believe that summer is quickly approaching.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s still enjoying work and is starting to get some more projects done that we have talked about. Yesterday was a busy day for him. He mowed and edged both lawns, did some more work trying to get the future tomato patch ready (this has been difficult for him because the soil is so full of clay, but we went to Lowe’s and got another tool, so hopefully it will be easier for him), helped me plant flowers where the cilantro used to be (it wasn’t turning out well, so we had to toss it), and installed a ceiling fan in our loft. I’m so happy with it! Now it circulates the air up there a bit better and hopefully it won’t get too stuffy when true summer hits.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I have been plugging away with my piano students (and may even pick up two more in a month or so; just waiting to hear back from their mom). I have also done a couple of crafts (just little banners for decorations. There’s pictures of them further down in the picture section of this post). I’m also being kept on my toes by an almost three-year-old (in four months…when did that happen?!). Which leads to…

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been trying to bargain with me on occasion: I asked him one morning, “How about some oatmeal?” His answer was, “How ’bout a cheese stick?” It took some convincing (and a promise of a cheese stick after he ate his oatmeal) to get him on my side. When it’s his turn to say the blessing on the food, he’ll often throw in other things that he’s thankful for, such as: temples, church, forks, hot dogs (or whatever other food might be on his plate…by the way, he LOVES Ranch dressing), Little Einsteins (one of his favorite shows), and cars (still one of his favorite toys). His imagination is also just exploding. He was watching Paul mow the lawn and making mower sounds. He later came up to me and said, “I’m a lawnmower! Vvvvvvmmmmmmm!” Oh, and the other day, he had one of his “play” phones (one of Paul’s old flip-phones). He was talking into it and said, “Hi! Guess what? Great news! (followed by some incoherent words).” He then handed me that phone and said that his Uncle Jason was coming. He talks a lot about Uncle Jason coming and Grandma and Grandpa coming. It will be good when we get to see them all in December. 🙂 Finally, he’s demonstrated that he’s got a rather excellent memory for shows that he’s seen multiple times. We were watching an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that he’s seen quite a few times and he was telling me all about what happened at the end. And he was right. His mind amazes me!

This Week in Pictures: