Anyone recognize this friendly neighborhood insect? It's a queen southern yellowjacket, and although I saw it flying busily in and out of our garage just yesterday, I'm pleased to report that it was acting stunned or otherwise injured when I found it crawling around on the garage floor today. It is now trapped under a large glass bowl, where it will unceremoniously remain until it perishes. She does not seem particularly happy about her predicament, but I am admittedly quite relieved!

There's nothing Rosalie seems to enjoy more than getting those last few drop of milk out of a cup, even if it happens to belong to Joseph!

I'm not sure if these two could get any sillier!

I think she likes building train tracks just as much as her brother!

When we realized what a lovely day it was shaping out to be, we decided to drop everything and head out for a hike! Here we are at Friederich Wilderness Park, admiring the wildflowers near the entrance and listening to a White-eyed Vireo sing.

We decided to take the main loop trail, which turned out to be pretty steep in some parts! Joseph is especially having fun looking for the numbered plant markers along the way.



Here are just a couple more shots as we go up and up...

and here we are at the top, reaping the reward of a nice view of the valley below. We sure are enjoying all the sights, sounds, and smells of nature today!

Rosalie may not be quite as absorbed with numbers as her brother was at age two, but there's no doubt she's learning how to count and say her ABCs! Here she is singing along now with the ever-popular fridge magnet set.



After getting her fill of singing and bouncing, now here she is jumping along, too! She has fantastic physical coordination and a great sense of balance. Just look at her go!

Here's our beautiful, blue-eyed, curly-haired girl...

having a great time reading Dr Seuss this Sat morning...

and looking quite intent while doing it, too! It makes me so happy to see how much she already enjoys books. May the love affair go on and on!

Having already mastered walking, running, climbing, jumping, and dancing, Rosalie is now spending much of her time and energy working on communication. This conversation is very typical lately, consisting of question, repetition of answer, and relevant comment. In this case, the series goes as follows: "What doing Daddy?", "Daddy making eggs!", and "Dump it out!" I just love listening to her small and adorable, but focused and intense voice!

Joseph continues to experiment with communication himself, mostly in the form of storytelling! Joseph's imaginary sidekicks, Moseph and Fosalie, now have a sometimes friend, sometimes sister, Annie, who is usually part of the scene. His stories generally go on for 10 or 15 minutes, until he's interrupted in some way. He really gets into them!

He'll also make up songs occasionally, and it's fun to hear what he comes up with! I've transcribed both song and story below.

"...down the hill and she saw Timber Ranch. Then she looked around the turn-bridge and she saw 55 Road. She turned on 55 Road. As soon as she got to the end of the field trip they got out of the car. 'What is that?' Fosalie said. Annie said, 'I drove to a restaurant, because we're having restaurant for Joy School snack.' So, Annie said, 'It took me a long time to do it.'

As soon as they were going back, a fire truck was coming around to the stop light. When the stoplight was green, they turned. Then, as soon as a while, she saw something big and funny. She looked behind her. She looked in front of her. She looked on one side. She looked on the other. Nothing! She took a look behind her another time to see what it was. It was...a stoplight!

And she looked in front of her. She saw what was small and funny. She looked up. In front of her was a hat, in front of her was a rose bush, and when they got there to the stoplight the road was closed, so she..."

If You All Have Seen Something Funny
If you see something funny, you have a chance to go outside...
You have been to a restaurant, and somebody saw something funny...

Rosalie got a hold of the cleaning gloves this afternoon and is chuckling to herself over how funny her hands look. What a silly little girl!

Today we've got three great reasons to celebrate! It's Easter, of course, and while many Christians here in San Antonio are making special plans to attend church today, we're actually changing things up by doing the opposite. Today is our church's semi-annual General Conference, which means we'll be able to hear from our general, as opposed to local, church leaders right here in the comfort of our home as their messages are broadcast around the world. Here we are enjoying a little egg hunt right after this morning's conference session!



The kids are absolutely having the time of their lives working together to find those eggs...

and getting ready to eat the candy inside!

The third reason we have to celebrate today is that it's Tim's birthday! Along with regular church services, all of Tim's extra leadership meetings are canceled as well, and he tells me that's a wonderful birthday present in and of itself. He loves working with the young men in our congregation, but the meetings he could do without!



He has no shortage of helpers and admirers surrounding him today!

One of my gifts to him is the DVD set for the first season of Lost, but it didn't get here in time, so Tim suggested I draw a picture of it instead. As he said when he opened it, now we can actually sit on the couch when watching our favorite show!

Although unrelated to the major themes of the day, here is Rosalie once again helping Kepler at play. I love her exuberant "I did it!" at the end!

Kepler has been doing a fantastic job with his crate training, going from whining, crying, and chewing on the crate whenever the door closed, to voluntarily lounging there when he wants to join us in the kitchen during meals or get a closer look at all those backyard birds and squirrels. What a good boy!

As a little bonus, here he is playing a bit with Rosalie. He really is a great family dog!