The Swan Family: “To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Oliver is one month old today! Wow. He is a beautiful, happy baby. I love him. I am going to try and take some more pictures of him on his one month day if things settle down around here a little bit.

Ivan woke up this morning with a sore throat. I'm sure he got it from Aaron, he's had one too the last couple of days. And I'm pretty sure Aaron got it from Lincoln, who complained of one a few days ago. I didn't really take him seriously though, because Lincoln is a miniature hypochondriac and will claim any ailment to postpone bedtime as long as possible. (You think I'm a mean mom, but I'm serious. He comes out of his room 4 or 5 times every night with some ache or pain or other. He's very creative about it too, the other night he ran out of health concerns, and so came out to tell me that he was absolutely positive that a giant was shaking our house.) But now that Aaron and Ivan have sore throats, I'm pretty sure Linc probably did a few days ago too. Oh well, you win some you lose some.

And don't feel too bad for Lincoln, he still got to go to the doctor this morning. He's had a rash the last couple of days that we thought was just eczema (wow, glad I looked that up, I was WAY off on the spelling), but it wasn't going away, and he was complaining that it hurt when anything touched his skin (like he wouldn't wear a shirt), so we decided to take him in this morning. Turns out the doctor doesn't think it's eczema at all, because it's all over his body, and I guess eczema is usually localized...anyways, she thinks it's either a virus that comes a long with the common cold sometimes, or an allergic reaction to something. She couldn't be 100% sure which, so she gave Lincoln some Benadryl, and told us to watch him. If it starts to fade and goes away and stays away, it's probably a virus. It it keeps having flare-ups it's probably an allergic reaction and we'll need to get him tested. My bet is on the virus, since we haven't eaten or done anything out of the ordinary to cause and allergic reaction.

So, we'll be staying home some more. But I'm ok. We've had a pretty busy week so far. On Monday Ivan's preschool group had a field trip to the fire station. I took all the kids and Aaron's mom. It was fun. And the firemen were really good with the kids, showing them all sorts of cool things, and answering Lincoln's million questions. They even let the kids walk through the ambulance.

Monday was also my brother Jackson's birthday. We tried to call and sing to him, but he didn't answer the phone. So we had to be satisfied with sending him this picture instead:

Last week, I attended a Mom's Night Out for our homeschool group. We had a curriculum night, which basically means everyone brings the curriculums they use all year long, so people who are interested can have a chance to look through the books and see if it would be something they like, instead of buying it online and being disappointed with it when it gets there. Someone there introduced me to this awesome book series called Let's Read and Find Out, which are basically science books for younger kids, written on just about any topic you can think of. So you read the books together, and then in the back most of them have a simple activity you can do together. I love it! So of course I went home and ordered as many as my budget for the month would allow (and maybe a few more).

This week we got our first one in the mail. It's called What the Moon is Like. And the experiment in the back was fun too, and easy. It told me to fill a container like a pie tin or a tupperware with 2 inches of flour and then sprinkle a thin layer of cocoa powder on top. Then take marbles and drop them in the container from about 5 inches up. The marble hitting the flour is supposed to look similar to a meteor hitting the surface of the moon (because the moon is covered in dust). I've never seen a meteor hit the moon, but our marbles definitely made craters in our flour. It was fun. The kids liked it, and made a huge mess (mostly Adelia). But it wasn't too bad to clean up. I love science! And I can't wait to get into the rest of our books and see what's in store for us.

I ordered the cutest outfits for all of us for Easter. Or at least pieces of outfits. Aaron and Oliver are getting matching ties. Ivan and Lincoln are getting polos (Old Navy had them online for $7.50 the other day, yes!). I got a new spring skirt, yay! And Adelia is getting the cutest little girl maxi dress. I got hers first, so everyone else got stuff to coordinate with her dress. I'm hoping to get a new family picture with Oliver in it on Easter. Why not? We already have the outfits. And we're related by blood to several very good photographers. :)

Our neighborhood book club read and discussed The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde this month. It was a crack up! One of the funniest books/plays I've ever read. So many great one-liners. I loved it. Next month, my homeschool moms book club is reading The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan. I think it sounds really good, and I'm excited to read it. We've also got some interesting stuff coming up for neighborhood book club, we just chose books last night for our new 'survival' theme. Here are the books we'll be reading through the end of the year:
-The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
-Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza
-The Road by Cormac McCarthy

-Divergent by Veronica Roth
-Favorite Children's Survival books such as Hatchet/Julie of the Wolves/Holes/Number the Stars/The Giver etc. coupled with the short story The Metamorphosis by Franz Kofka
-Lord of the Flies by William Golding
-Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

I think I'm going to be in reader heaven. A lot of these are already on my To Read list.

I finally submitted another article to The LDS Sentinel. I'm supposed to do one every month, but I do pretty well to get one our every four months or so, and I haven't put any out since I got pregnant with Oliver. Oops. This time my article is called Gettin' Your Game On. I don't think the writing is anything wonderful, but I do think the ideas are fun. Hopefully, as I keep doing this column, I can improve my writing. My skill has gone WAY downhill since I left college. (Which is made perfectly clear by the writing quality of this blog, eck! No time for revision, gotta keep on documenting the fam.)

Yesterday my good friend Molly came to visit with her new baby boy. Her baby and Oliver are only a day apart. They were supposed to be three weeks apart, but Molly went a week past her due date, and Oliver came two weeks early. Funny how that works out sometimes. I meant to get a picture of the two little guys together. They are both adorable. But we got talking, and before I knew it we had to leave to pick up Aaron from work, and I didn't get a picture. Next time. It was fun to have Molly come over and talk baby talk with me. :)

Anyways, happy one month old to Oliver. I'll try to take some more pictures today, but until I do, these will have to suffice.